Optimality of contraction-driven crawling

Abstract

We study a model of cell motility where the condition of optimal trade-off between performance and metabolic cost can be made precise. In this model a steadily crawling fragment is represented by a layer of active gel placed on a frictional surface and driven by contraction only. We find analytically the distribution of contractile elements (pullers) ensuring that the efficiency of self-propulsion is maximal. We then show that natural assumptions about advection and diffusion of pullers produce a distribution that is remarkably close to the optimal one and is qualitatively similar to the one observed in experiments on fish keratocytes.

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• Colliding cells: when active segments behave as active particles
• Active gel segment behaving as an active particle
• Cell motility as an energy minimization process
• Possibility neutrosophic soft sets with applications in decision making and similarity measure