PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Diane Coursier
AU  - David Coulette
AU  - Hélène Leman
AU  - Emmanuel Grenier
AU  - Gabriel Ichim
TI  - Live-cell imaging and mathematical analysis of the “community effect” in apoptosis
AID  - 10.1101/2022.07.21.500970
DP  - 2022 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2022.07.21.500970
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/07/22/2022.07.21.500970.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/07/22/2022.07.21.500970.full
AB  - As a cellular intrinsic mechanism leading to cellular demise, apoptosis was thoroughly characterized from a mechanistic perspective. Nowadays there is an increasing interest in describing the non-cell autonomous or community effects of apoptosis, especially in the context of resistance to cancer treatments. Transitioning from cell-centered to cell population-relevant mechanisms adds a layer of complexity for imaging and analyzing an enormous number of apoptotic events. In addition, the community effect between apoptotic and living cells is difficult to be taken into account for complex analysis. We describe here a robust and easy to implement method to analyze the interactions between cancer cells, while under apoptotic pressure. Using this approach we showed as proof-of-concept that apoptosis is insensitive to cellular density, while the proximity to apoptotic cells increases the probability of a given cell to undergo apoptosis.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.