Chemo-mechanical model of a cell as a stochastic active gel
arXiv:2103.00865 · doi:10.1016/j.jmps.2021.104381
Abstract
While it is commonly observed that the shape dynamics of mammalian cells can undergo large random fluctuations, theoretical models aiming at capturing cell mechanics often focus on the deterministic part of the motion. In this paper, we present a framework that couples an active gel model of the cell mechanical scaffold with the complex cell metabolic system stochastically delivering the chemical energy needed to sustain an active stress in the scaffold. Our closure assumption setting the magnitude of the fluctuations is that the chemo-mechanical free energy of the cell is controlled at a target homeostatic value. Our model rationalizes the experimental observation that the cell shape fluctuations depend on the mechanical environment that constraints the cell. We apply our framework to the simple case of a cell migrating on a one dimensional track to successfully capture the different regimes of the cell mean square displacement along the track as well as the magnitude of the long time scale effective diffusive motion of the cell.
References in corpus (9)
- Generic theory of active polar gels: a paradigm for cytoskeletal dynamics
- Anomalous dynamics of cell migration
- Persistent Cell Motion in the Absence of External Signals: A Search Strategy for Eukaryotic Cells
- Spontaneous symmetry breaking in active droplets provides a generic route to motility
- Spontaneous division and motility in active nematic droplets
- Active Gel Model of Amoeboid Cell Motility
- Mechanics of motility initiation and motility arrest in crawling cells
- Optimality of contraction-driven crawling
- Modeling cell crawling strategies with a bistable model: From amoeboid to fan-shaped cell motion