Related papers: One dimensional cell motility patterns
The mechanics of crawling cells on a substrate is investigated by using a minimal model that satisfies the force-free condition. A cell is described by two subcellular elements connected by a linear actuator that changes the length of the…
Eukaryotic cells and intracellular pathogens such as bacteria or viruses utilize the actin polymerization machinery to propel themselves forward. Thereby, the onset of motion and choice of direction may be the result of a spontaneous…
The ability of cells to sense and respond to the mechanical properties of their environments is fundamental to a range of cellular behaviours, with substrate stiffness increasingly being found to be a key signalling factor. Although active…
During animal development and homeostasis, the structure of tissues, including muscles, blood vessels and connective tissues adapts to mechanical strains in the extracellular matrix (ECM). These strains originate from the differential…
The migratory dynamics of cells can be influenced by the complex micro-environment through which they move. It remains unclear how the motility machinery of confined cells responds and adapts to their micro-environment. Here, we propose a…
Amoeboid cell migration is characterized by frequent changes of the direction of motion and resembles a persistent random walk on long time scales. Although it is well known that cell migration is typically driven by the actin cytoskeleton,…
Biological cells are able to adapt their behaviour in response to environmental cues. Durotaxis is a phenomenon in which cells adjust their migration depending on the mechanical properties of a surrounding substrate. Although durotaxis has…
Cell migration, which is strictly regulated by intracellular and extracellular cues, is crucial for normal physiological processes and the progression of certain diseases. However, there is a lack of an efficient approach to analyze…
A variety of living and non-living systems exhibit collective motion. From swarm robotics to bacterial swarms, and tissue wound healing to human crowds, examples of collective motion are highly diverse but all of them share the common…
Transitions between solid-like and fluid-like states in living tissues have been found in steps of embryonic development and in stages of disease progression. Our current understanding of these transitions has been guided by experimental…
In many adult tissues, stem cells and differentiated cells are not homogeneously distributed : stem cells are arranged in periodic "niches", and differentiated cells are constantly produced and migrate out of these niches. In this article,…
Constructing physical models of living cells and tissues is an extremely challenging task because of the high complexities of both intra- and intercellular processes. In addition, the force that a single cell generates vanishes in total due…
During migration, amoeboid cells perform a cycle of quasi-periodic repetitive events (motility cycle). the cell length and the strain energy exchanged with the substrate oscillate in time with an average frequency, f, on top of which are…
Collective cell migration plays an essential role in various biological processes, such as development or cancer proliferation. While cell-cell interactions are clearly key determinants of collective cell migration -- in addition to…
Eukaryotic cell motility involves a complex network of interactions between biochemical components and mechanical processes. The cell employs this network to polarize and induce shape changes that give rise to membrane protrusions and…
Many physiological phenomena involve directional cell migration. It is usually attributed to chemical gradients in vivo. Recently, other cues have been shown to guide cells in vitro, including stiffness/adhesion gradients or micro-patterned…
Many types of motile cells perform durotaxis, namely, directed migration following gradients of substrate stiffness. Recent experiments have revealed that cell monolayers can migrate toward stiffer regions even when individual cells do not…
T cells undergo large shape changes (morphodynamics) when migrating. While progress has been made elucidating the molecular basis of cell migration, statistical characterization of morphodynamics and migration has been limited, particularly…
Collective cell migration in cohesive units is vital for tissue morphogenesis, wound repair, and immune response. While the fundamental driving forces for collective cell motion stem from contractile and protrusive activities of individual…
Cell migration is an indispensable physiological and pathological process for normal tissue development and cancer metastasis, which is greatly regulated by intracellular signal pathways and extracellular microenvironment (ECM). However,…