A mechanical model for guided motion of mammalian cells

TL;DR

This paper presents a mechanical model explaining mammalian cell movement in response to environmental cues, accounting for experimental observations and predicting that cell shape influences movement efficiency.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mechanical model that unifies various cell motility modes and explains key experimental phenomena in cell migration.

Findings

Model explains high efficiency of cell motion

Predicts elongated cells move more efficiently

Accounts for behavior on inhomogeneous substrates

Abstract

We introduce a generic, purely mechanical model for environment sensitive motion of mammalian cells that is applicable to chemotaxis, haptotaxis, and durotaxis as modes of motility. It is able to theoretically explain all relevant experimental observations, in particular, the high efficiency of motion, the behavior on inhomogeneous substrates, and the fixation of the lagging pole during motion. Furthermore, our model predicts that efficiency of motion in following a gradient depends on cell geometry (with more elongated cells being more efficient).