A Mechanochemical Model of Cell Migration in Confined Environments

Dr. Emmanuel Asante-Asamani
Assistant Professor of Mathematics
Clarkson University

Eukaryotic cells can move in confined environments by using pressure driven protrusions of their cell membrane, a motility mechanism known as blebbing. Blebbing has been observed to facilitate the movement of tumor cells and some cancer cells during metastasis. Many questions remain unanswered about how cells translate mechanical cues from their environment into coordinated movement during blebbing. Of particular interest is how proteins that link the cell membrane to the cortex regulate the size and frequency of blebs under different levels of environmental confinement. In this talk, I will present a multiscale model of bleb expansion that treats the cell as a viscous fluid encased by a viscoelastic boundary, whose mechanical properties are regulated by dynamic structural and motor proteins. Numerical simulation of this model supports experimental data suggesting, contrary to intuition, that weakening the adhesion of the cell membrane to the cortex produces smaller and less frequent blebs.