Biophysical and Biochemical Foundations of Cell Migration

Many cell types, whether isolated or in cohorts, are motile. The focus of this chapter is to understand from a computational modeling perspective the motility of single cells and their collective aspects, such as herding, as demonstrated in eukaryotic cells during development. After introducing metrics typically used to quantify and characterize cell motility, a simple quantitative model of cell migration is presented. Step-by-step introduction to the construction of the model will be given. Implementation of this model in Matlab is shown, and basic results of the simulation are discussed. This chapter will also provide an introduction to essential biochemical components of cell migration. This chapter will introduce basic physical and mathematical concepts involved in the modeling of cell migration. One particular modeling approach, namely self-propelled particle model, its ingredients, mathematical formulation, and computational framework, will be presented. Using Matlab we will build a simple self-propelled particle model to simulate cell migration in two dimensions. You will learn how to think about a biological process in terms of physics and maths. You will also be introduced to some intracellular biochemical players that have a key role in cell migration.