Work

Universal principles of cell population growth follow from local contact inhibition

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Cancer cell populations often exhibit remarkably similar growth laws despite their heterogeneity. Explanations of universal cell population growth remain partly unresolved to this day. Here, we present a growth-law unification by investigating the connection between the microscopic assumptions that affect the expected contact inhibition leading to five classical tumor growth laws: exponential, radial growth, fractal growth, generalized logistic, and Gompertzian growth. All five can be seen as manifestations of a single microscopic model. Agent-based simulations substantiate our theory, and we can explain differences in growth curves in experimental data from in vitro cancer cell population growth. Thus, our framework offers a possible explanation for many mean-field laws used to empirically capture seemingly unrelated cancer or microbial growth dynamics. Our results highlight that the interplay between contact inhibition and other assumptions (e.g., well-mixed) can influence our quantitative understanding of how cancer cells grow and, in turn, how they may interact.

Source: iScience

DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2026.115953