Related papers: Modelling how lamellipodia-driven cells maintain p…
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…
We consider a partial differential equation model for the growth of heterogeneous cell populations subdivided into multiple distinct discrete phenotypes. In this model, cells preferentially move towards regions where they feel less…
The Filament Based Lamellipodium Model (FBLM) is a two-phase two-dimensional continuum model, describing the dynamcis of two interacting families of locally parallel actin filaments (C.Schmeiser and D.Oelz, How do cells move? Mathematical…
Cell movement and intercellular signaling occur simultaneously during the development of tissues, but little is known about how movement affects signaling. Previous theoretical studies have shown that faster moving cells favor…
Contact between particles and motile cells underpins a wide variety of biological processes, from nutrient capture and ligand binding, to grazing, viral infection and cell-cell communication. The window of opportunity for these interactions…
Collective cell migration is crucial to many physiological and pathological processes. Recent experimental studies have indicated that the active traction forces generated by migrating cells in fibrous extracellular matrix (ECM) can…
Collective motion is a phenomenon observed across length scales in nature, from bacterial swarming and tissue migration to the flocking of animals. The mechanisms underlying this behavior vary significantly depending on the biological…
The study of the interactions of living adherent cells with mechanically stable (visco)elastic materials enables understanding and exploiting physiological phenomena mediated by cell-extracellular communication. However, insight on the…
Chemotaxis combines three processes: directional sensing, polarity reorientation and migration. Directed migration plays an important role in immune response, metastasis, wound healing and development. To describe chemotaxis, we extend a…
This paper deals with a class of macroscopic models for cell migration in a saturated medium for two-species mixtures. Those species tend to achieve some motion according to a desired velocity, and congestion forces them to adapt their…
Cell spreading is investigated at various scales in order to understand motility of living cells which is essential for a range of physiological activities in higher organisms as well as in microbes. At a microscopic scale, it has been seen…
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 movement, for example during embryogenesis or tumor metastasis, is a complex dynamical process resulting from an intricate interplay of multiple components of the cellular migration machinery. At first sight, the paths of migrating…
Collective cell migration is crucial in many biological processes such as wound healing, tissue morphogenesis, and tumor progression. The leading front of a collective migrating epithelial cell layer often destabilizes into multicellular…
We consider a coupled bulk/surface model for advection and diffusion of interacting chemical species in biological cells. Specifically, we consider a signalling protein that can exist in both a cytosolic and a membrane-bound state, along…
Cells control the size and organization of biomolecular condensates formed by liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), but multiple mechanisms likely contribute to this control and remain to be fully elucidated. Here we propose a…
The polarization and motility of eukaryotic cells depends on assembly and contraction of the actin cytoskeleton and its regulation by proteins called GTPases. The activity of GTPases causes assembly of filamentous actin (by GTPases Cdc42,…
We have studied the collective motion of polar active particles confined to ellipsoidal surfaces. The geometric constraints lead to the formation of vortices that encircle surface points of constant curvature (umbilics). We have found that…
Recent research has shown that motile cells can adapt their mode of propulsion to the mechanical properties of the environment in which they find themselves--crawling in some environments while swimming in others. The latter can involve…
The present article is an invited contribution to the Encyclopedia of Complexity and System Science, Robert A. Meyers Ed., Springer New York (2009). It is a review of the biophysical mechanisms that underly cell motility. It mainly focuses…