The kinematic characteristics and intrinsic information of cell migration behavior
Abstract
<p indent="0mm">Cell migration plays a significant role in both physiological and pathological processes. Studying the behavior of cell migration helps us to understand the internal functions and developmental differentiation mechanisms of motile cells. This paper introduces several recent developments in experimental research related to the migration behavior of <italic>Dictyostelium discoideum</italic> (Dicty cells), including the nonlinear dynamics of single-cell migration, the effects of intercellular interactions during the collision process between two cells, and the association between the distribution of group cell movement speeds and their food searching strategies. These experimental results demonstrate that the kinematic characteristics of Dicty cell migration correspond to a stable-attractor structure. By investigating the information of the attractor structures, mathematical models of the differential equations governing the motile cells can be established, and the inherent characteristic time that describes the nature of cell migration behavior can be obtained. Furthermore, the study found that by spatially distributing search weights amongst cells, the velocity distribution of group cell movement can be linked to foraging efficiency. The observed distribution of group cell movement speed under certain conditions always corresponds to an optimal spatial search efficiency of cells. Finally, experimental results of the cells’ motion during collision processes suggest that the impact strength of Dicty cell interactions approximately follows the classical sigmoid function form, implying that the motile response of single cells may also conform to the form of the Weber-Fechner Law.</p>
