Related papers: Amoeboid cell migration and shape dynamics driven …
Based on symmetry consideration of migration and shape deformations, we formulate phenomenologically the dynamics of cell crawling in two dimensions. Forces are introduced to change the cell shape. The shape deformations induce migration of…
The actin cytoskeleton of cells is in continuous motion due to both polymerization of new filaments and their contraction by myosin II molecular motors. Through adhesion to the substrate, such intracellular flow can be converted into cell…
Based on experimental observations it is known that various biological cells exhibit a persistent random walk during migration on flat substrates. The persistent random walk is characterized by `stop-and-go' movements : unidirectional…
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…
Growth drives cellular dynamics in dense aggregates including bacterial colonies, developing tissues, and tumors. We investigate the underlying physical principles emerging from the interplay of growth, steric repulsion, and motility in a…
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…
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…
A simple model is proposed that describes the various morphodynamic principles of migrating cells from polar to amoeboidal motions. The model equation is derived using competing internal cellular compass variables and symmetries of the…
A motile cell, when stimulated, shows a dramatic increase in the activity of its membrane, manifested by the appearance of dynamic membrane structures such as lamellipodia, filopodia and membrane ruffles. The external stimulus turns on…
A number of biological processes, such as embryo development, cancer metastasis or wound healing, rely on cells moving in concert. The mechanisms leading to the emergence of coordinated motion remain however largely unexplored. Although…
Amoeboid cell motility is relevant in a wide variety of biomedical applications such as wound healing, cancer metastasis, and embryonic morphogenesis. It is characterized by pronounced changes of the cell shape associated with expansions…
The motility of a fish keratocyte on a flat substrate exhibits two distinct regimes: the non-migrating and the migrating one. In both configurations the shape is fixed in time and, when the cell is moving, the velocity is constant in…
We study a minimal model of a crawling eukaryotic cell with a chemical polarity controlled by a reaction-diffusion mechanism describing Rho GTPase dynamics. The size, shape, and speed of the cell emerge from the combination of the chemical…
Cell spreading requires a major reorganisation of the actin cytoskeleton, from a cortical structure to a lamellipodium where filaments are mostly parallel to the substrate. We propose a model inspired by the physics of nematic liquid…
Locomotion of bacteria by actin polymerization, and in vitro motion of spherical beads coated with a protein catalyzing polymerization, are examples of active motility. Starting from a simple model of forces locally normal to the surface of…
Crawling cell motility is vital to many biological processes such as wound healing and the immune response. Using a minimal model we investigate the effects of patterned substrate adhesiveness and biophysical cell parameters on the…
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…
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,…
The coupling of the internal mechanisms of cell polarization to cell shape deformations and subsequent cell crawling poses many interdisciplinary scientific challenges. Several mathematical approaches have been proposed to model the…
The migration of cells is relevant for processes such as morphogenesis, wound healing, and invasion of cancer cells. In order to move, single cells deform cyclically. However, it is not understood how these shape oscillations influence…