Mechanotaxis and cell motility
Biological Physics
2013-02-19 v1 Soft Condensed Matter
Cell Behavior
Abstract
We propose a mechanism of cell motility which is based on contraction and does not require protrusion. The contraction driven translocation of a cell is due to internal flow of the cytoskeleton generated by molecular motors. Each motor contributes to the stress field and simultaneously undergoes biased random motion in the direction of a higher value of this stress. In this way active cross-linkers use passive actin network as a medium through which they interact and self-organize. The model exhibits motility initiation pattern similar to the one observed in experiments on keratocytes.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1302.3999,
title = {Mechanotaxis and cell motility},
author = {Pierre Recho and Thibault Putelat and Lev Truskinovsky},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1302.3999},
year = {2013}
}