# Minimal Model of Directed Cell Motility on Patterned Substrates

## TL;DR

This study presents a minimal biophysical model demonstrating how substrate patterning and cell adhesion parameters influence the direction of cell motility, with potential applications in cell sorting and guidance.

## Contribution

It introduces a minimal model that links substrate adhesiveness and cell parameters to directional cell movement, revealing new insights into cell motility control.

## Key findings

- Cells with low adhesion rates move perpendicular to stripes.
- High adhesion rate cells move parallel to stripes.
- Varying actin polymerization affects movement directionality.

## Abstract

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 direction of cell motion. We show that cells with low adhesion site formation rates may move perpendicular to adhesive stripes while a those with high adhesion site formation rates results in motility only parallel to the substrate stripes. We explore the effects of varying the substrate pattern and the strength of actin polymerization on the directionality of the crawling cell; these results have applications in motile cell sorting and guiding on engineered substrates.