Modeling and simulating cell motility

Jupiter Algorta, Ali Fele-Paranj, Jack M. Hughes, Leah Edelstein-Keshet. Modeling and Simulating Single and Collective Cell Motility. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology 17(12), a041796 (2025).
DOI · PMC

Illustration, not a figure from the paper.

What it covers

Cells crawl by polymerizing actin at the front and contracting at the rear, under the control of signalling proteins such as Rac and Rho. The review goes through models at three levels:

1. Inside one cell: reaction-diffusion models of polarity and of actin waves.
2. One cell moving: models that couple the internal chemistry to the shape and motion of the cell.
3. Many cells: collective migration, where cells push, pull, and signal to each other.

Each level comes with simulations that show what the models can and cannot explain.

Why it matters

The models in this field are often hard to reproduce. The review argues for building them in shared open-source software, such as Morpheus, so that others can rerun, check, and extend them.

Cite

@article{algorta2025motility,
  title   = {Modeling and Simulating Single and Collective Cell Motility},
  author  = {Algorta, Jupiter and Fele-Paranj, Ali and Hughes, Jack M. and Edelstein-Keshet, Leah},
  journal = {Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology},
  volume  = {17},
  number  = {12},
  pages   = {a041796},
  year    = {2025},
  doi     = {10.1101/cshperspect.a041796}
}

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