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Control of the cytoskeleton and mechanical contacts with the extracellular environment are essential component of motility in eukaryotic cells. In the absence of signals, cells continuously rebuild the cytoskeleton and periodically extend…
Neuronal and glial cells release diverse proteoglycans and glycoproteins, which aggregate in the extracellular space and form the extracellular matrix (ECM) that may in turn regulate major cellular functions. Brain cells also release…
The motility of eukaryotic cells is strongly influenced by their environment, with confined cells often developing qualitatively different motility patterns from those migrating on simple two-dimensional substrates. Recent experiments,…
A detailed understanding of the interface between living cells and substrate materials is of rising importance in many fields of medicine, biology and biotechnology. Cells at interfaces often form epithelia. The physical barrier that they…
The motion of a eukaryotic cell presents a variety of interesting and challenging problems from both a modeling and a computational perspective. The processes span many spatial scales (from molecular to tissue) as well as disparate time…
Protrusions at the leading-edge of a cell play an important role in sensing the extracellular cues, during cellular spreading and motility. Recent studies provided indications that these protrusions wrap (coil) around the extra-cellular…
Cell migration is crucial to many physiological and pathological processes. During migration, a cell adapts its morphology, including the overall morphology and nucleus morphology, in response to various cues in complex microenvironments,…
Observations of single epidermal cells on flat adhesive substrates have revealed two distinct morphological and functional states, namely a non-migrating symmetric unpolarized state and a migrating asymmetric polarized state. These states…
We made a link between Extra Cellular Matrix (ECM) plasticity and the morphologi cal changes in synapses after synaptic excitation. A recent study by Zhang et al \cite{zhang} showed tha t transmembrane voltage causes movement of the cell…
Cell adhesion and migration are strongly influenced by extracellular matrix (ECM) architecture and rigidity, but little is known about the concomitant influence of such environmental signals to cell responses, especially when considering…
Contractile forces exerted on the surrounding extracellular matrix (ECM) lead to the alignment and stretching of constituent fibers within the vicinity of cells. As a consequence, the matrix reorganizes to form thick bundles of aligned…
A fundamental feature of collective cell migration is phenotypic heterogeneity which, for example, influences tumour progression and relapse. While current mathematical models often consider discrete phenotypic structuring of the cell…
Collective cell migration is a key driver of embryonic development, wound healing, and some types of cancer invasion. Here we provide a physical perspective of the mechanisms underlying collective cell migration. We begin with a catalogue…
We extend a model for the morphology and dynamics of a crawling eukaryotic cell to describe cells on micropatterned substrates. This model couples cell morphology, adhesion, and cytoskeletal flow in response to active stresses induced by…
We consider a mathematical model of cancer cell invasion of the extracellular matrix (ECM), comprising a strongly degenerate parabolic partial differential equation for the cell volume fraction, coupled with an ordinary differential…
Extracellular matrix (ECM) constitutes a key basement structure to human organisms by acting as a complex network of large proteins and carbohydrates that provide structural support to surrounding cells. Remodeling in the extracellular…
Cell polarity and movement are fundamental to many biological functions. Experimental and theoretically studies have indicated that interactions of certain proteins lead to the cell polarization which plays a key role in controlling the…
We propose a multiscale model of the invasion of the extracellular matrix by two types of cancer cells, the differentiated cancer cells and the cancer stem cells. We assume that the epithelial mesenchymal-like transition between them is…
Collective cell migration in 3D extracellular matrix (ECM) is crucial to many physiological and pathological processes. Migrating cells can generate active pulling forces via actin filament contraction, which are transmitted to the ECM…
Left-right axis specification establishes embryonic laterality through asymmetric signaling cascades originating at the cellular scale. We previously reported the presence of a directionality bias in confined pairs of endothelial (and…