Mechanisms of Cell Motion in Confined Geometries
We present a simple mechanism of cell motility in a confined geometry, inspired by recent motility assays in microfabricated channels. This mechanism relies mainly on the coupling of actin polymerisation at the cell membrane to geometric confinement. We first show analytically using a minimal model of polymerising viscoelastic gel confined in a narrow channel that spontaneous motion occurs due to polymerisation alone. Interestingly, this mechanism...