期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2010
卷号：107
期号：20
页码：9141-9146
DOI：10.1073/pnas.1002538107
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：Many cells crawl by extending an actin-rich pseudopod. We have devised a simulation that describes how the polymerization kinetics of a branched actin filament network, coupled with excluded volume effects, powers the motility of crawling cells such as amoebae and fish keratocytes. Our stochastic simulation is based on the key fundamental properties of actin polymerization, namely growth, shrinkage, capping, branching, and nucleation, and also includes contributions from the creation and breaking of adhesive contacts with the substrate together with excluded volume effects related to filament packing. When reasonable values for appropriate constants were employed, this simulation generated a force-velocity relationship that resembled closely that observed experimentally. Our simulations indicated that excluded volume effects associated with actin filament branching lead to a decreased packing efficiency and resultant swelling of the cytoskeleton gel that contributes substantially to lamellipod protrusion.
关键词：cell movement ; force generation ; retrograde flow ; Arp2/3
