Mechanotaxis and cell motility

TL;DR

This paper introduces a contraction-based mechanism for cell motility driven by molecular motors and cytoskeletal flow, explaining how cells can move without protrusions, aligning with experimental observations.

Contribution

It presents a novel model of cell motility based on contraction and active cross-linkers, differing from protrusion-based theories.

Findings

Model reproduces keratocyte motility patterns

Active cross-linkers self-organize within the actin network

Contraction alone can drive cell translocation

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.