Mechanics of cell crawling by means of force-free cyclic motion

TL;DR

This paper presents a minimal force-free model for cell crawling, showing how cyclic internal motions and adhesion dynamics determine movement efficiency and direction.

Contribution

It introduces a novel minimal model that captures force-free cyclic motion and adhesion switching to explain cell crawling mechanics.

Findings

Phase shifts control crawling direction.

Model predicts movement efficiency based on internal dynamics.

Adhesion timing influences cell motility.

Abstract

The mechanics of crawling cells on a substrate is investigated by using a minimal model that satisfies the force-free condition. A cell is described by two subcellular elements connected by a linear actuator that changes the length of the cell cyclically in time, together with periodic alternation of adhesive characters at the interface between the cell and the substrate. Here the key model parameters are the phase shifts between the elongation of the actuator and the alternation of the adhesion of the two elements. We emphasize that the phase shifts determine not only the efficiency of the crawling motion but also its direction.