Time: | Oct. 17, 2014, 3:30pm-4:30pm. |
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Place: | 113 McAllister Building. |
Speaker: | Igor Aronson, Argone National Lab and Northwestern University |
Title: | Phase-Field Modeling of Collective Migration of Eukaryotic Cells |
Abstract: | Self-propelled motion, emerging spontaneously or in response to external cues, is a hallmark of living organisms. Systems of self-propelled synthetic particles are also relevant for multiple applications, from targeted drug delivery to the design of self-healing materials. Self-propulsion relies on the force transfer to the surrounding. While self-propelled swimming in the bulk of liquids is fairly well characterized, many open questions remain in our understanding of self-propelled motion along substrates, such as in the case of crawling cells or related biomimetic objects. How is the force transfer organized and how does it interplay with the deformability of the moving object and the substrate? How do the spatially dependent traction distribution and adhesion dynamics give rise to complex cell behavior? How can we engineer a specific cell response on synthetic compliant substrates? Here we developed model for a crawling cell by incorporating locally resolved traction forces and substrate deformations. The model captures the generic structure of the traction force distribution and faithfully reproduces experimental observations, like the response of a cell on a gradient in substrate elasticity (durotaxis). It also exhibits complex modes of cell movement such as “bipedal” motion.The model is extended to multiple migrating cells by introducing individual phase field for each cell. Depending on the model parameters we obtained a transition to collective migration or rotation of multiple cells. |