Ethological dynamics in diorama environments

Cell migration is of fundamental importance in various biological processes, such as tissue development and homeostasis. In general, the mechanical properties of the cells’ environment are not uniform, and the interplay of biochemical sensing and mechanical interactions determines the individual cell’s motion. These intercellular interactions eventually lead to coordinated movement that cause appropriate deformations and rearrangements in the cell tissue. Although a multitude of intracellular factors contribute to the observed cell’s dynamics, the details of these processes are less well understood and warrant the need for further theoretical studies. In particular, we want to understand the intracellular mechanisms underlying mechanosensing, i.e. the way in which cells sense and change their behaviour according to their mechanical surroundings. While real in vivo systems are highly complex and thus not easily accessible to theoretical study, simplified experimental setups using a substrate with non-uniform mechanical properties have been proposed that allow to investigate cell migration and mechanosensing ability. By focusing on the crawling dynamics of cells in such diorama environments, we investigate theoretically the mechanosensing mechanism in crawling cells.