Morphology and Motility of Cells on Soft Substrates
Biological Physics
2018-08-06 v2 Cell Behavior
Abstract
Recent experiments suggest that the interplay between cells and the mechanics of their substrate gives rise to a diversity of morphological and migrational behaviors. Here, we develop a Cellular Potts Model of polarizing cells on a visco-elastic substrate. We compare our model with experiments on endothelial cells plated on polyacrylamide hydrogels to constrain model parameters and test predictions. Our analysis reveals that morphology and migratory behavior are determined by an intricate interplay between cellular polarization and substrate strain gradients generated by traction forces exerted by cells (self-haptotaxis).
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1808.00314,
title = {Morphology and Motility of Cells on Soft Substrates},
author = {Andriy Goychuk and David B. Brückner and Andrew W. Holle and Joachim P. Spatz and Chase P. Broedersz and Erwin Frey},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1808.00314},
year = {2018}
}