A Mathematical Model for Entrapment of Cells through Haptotaxis

Source abstract

This work proposes a new model for adhesive haptotaxis in cell migration, extending previous work. Following experiments on lymphocytes that revealed a non-standard behavior known as reverse adhesive haptotaxis, we adapted a single-cell migration model originally proposed by I. Aronson and F. Ziebert, which accounts for the dynamics of adhesion site density. However, even if the previously proposed model was able to reproduce reverse adhesive haptotaxis with some specific feedback mechanism, the previous work showed some limitations. In this work, to reproduce the complexity of such a non-classical and not yet well-understood behavior, we describe the adhesion mechanism by modelling more directly the ligand/integrin interaction, allowing us to be closer to the previously mentioned experimental framework. We not only observe reverse and classical adhesive haptotaxis, as previously reported, but also a new complex behavior that we call “rebound”, which can cause the entrapment of cells in the low-adhesion zone.