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arXiv · 1405.7088

Velocity alignment leads to high persistence in confined cells

Brian A. Camley·Wouter-Jan Rappel
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Abstract

Many cell types display random motility on two-dimensional substrates, but crawl persistently in a single direction when confined in a microchannel or on an adhesive micropattern. Does this imply that the motility mechanism of confined cells is fundamentally different from that of unconfined cells? We argue that both free- and confined- cell migration may be described by a generic model of cells as "velocity aligning" active Brownian particles previously proposed to solve a completely separate problem in collective cell migration. Our model can be mapped to a diffusive escape over a barrier and analytically solved to determine the cell's orientation distribution and repolarization rate. In quasi-one-dimensional confinement, velocity-aligning cells maintain their direction for times that can be exponentially larger than their persistence time in the absence of confinement. Our results suggest an important new connection between single- and collective- cell migration: high persistence in confined cells corresponds with fast alignment of velocity to cell-cell forces.

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Brian A. Camley, Wouter-Jan Rappel. 2014-05-27. Velocity alignment leads to high persistence in confined cells. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreve.89.062705

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