Related papers: Geometry-sensitive protrusion growth directs confi…
Cancer cell migration between different body parts is the driving force behind cancer metastasis, which is the main cause of mortality of patients. Migration of cancer cells often proceeds by penetration through narrow cavities in locally…
We study a model of contraction-based cell motility inside a microchannel to investigate the regulation of cell polarization and motion by the mechanical resistance of the environment. A positive feedback between the asymmetry of the…
How the cells break symmetry and organize their edge activity to move directionally is a fun- damental question in cell biology. Physical models of cell motility commonly rely on gradients of regulatory factors and/or feedback from the…
In this thesis we develop minimal models of the relationship between motility, growth, and evolution of cancer cells. We utilise simple simulations of a population of individual cells in space to examine how changes in mechanical properties…
The reaction-diffusion models have been extensively applied to explain the mechanism of pattern formations in early embryogenesis based on geometrically confined microtissues consisting of human pluripotent stem cells. Recently, mechanical…
Single and collective cell migration are fundamental processes critical for physiological phenomena ranging from embryonic development and immune response to wound healing and cancer metastasis. To understand cell migration from a physical…
We propose a non-local model for contact guidance and steric hindrance depending on a single external cue, namely the extracellular matrix, that affects in a twofold way the polarization and speed of motion of the cells. We start from a…
The directed migration of cells toward stiffer substrate regions or durotaxis is relevant to tissue development and tumor progression. Here, we introduce a phenomenological model for single cell durotaxis that incorporates both elastic…
Computational models have become an essential part of exploratory protocols in cell biology, as a complement to in vivo or in vitro experiments. These virtual models have the twofold advantage of enabling access to new types of data and…
Transport of molecular motors along protein filaments in a half-closed geometry is a common feature of biologically relevant processes in cellular protrusions. Using a lattice gas model we study how the interplay between active and…
A novel assay based on micropatterning and time-lapse microscopy has been developed for the study of nuclear migration dynamics in cultured mammalian cells. When cultured on 10-20 um wide adhesive stripes, the motility of C6 glioma and…
Eukaryotic cells possess motility mechanisms allowing them not only to self-propel but also to exert forces on obstacles (to push) and to carry cargoes (to pull). To study the inherent asymmetry between active pushing and pulling we model a…
The dynamic interplay between collective cell movement and the various molecules involved in the accompanying cell signalling mechanisms plays a crucial role in many biological processes including normal tissue development and pathological…
Many cellular processes require a polarization axis which generally initially emerges as an inhomogeneous distribution of molecular markers in the cell. We present a simple analytical model of a general mechanism of cell polarization taking…
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…
Cell crawling requires the generation of intracellular forces by the cytoskeleton and their transmission to an extracellular substrate through specific adhesion molecules. Crawling cells show many features of excitable systems, such as…
We present a systematic study of the influence of cell geometry on the orientational distribution of microtubules (MTs) nucleated from a single microtubule organizing center (MTOC). For simplicity we consider an elliptical cell geometry, a…
Mechanical interactions among cells in a growing microbial colony can significantly influence the colony's spatial genetic structure and, thus, evolutionary outcomes such as the fates of rare mutations. Here, we computationally investigate…
The interaction of the actin cytoskeleton with cell-substrate adhesions is necessary for cell migration. While the trajectories of motile cells have a stochastic character, investigations of cell motility mechanisms rarely elaborate on the…
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…