An extended Filament Based Lamellipodium Model produces various moving cell shapes in the presence of chemotactic signals

The Filament Based Lamellipodium Model (FBLM) is a two-phase two-dimensional continuum model, describing the dynamics of two interacting families of locally parallel actin filaments (Oelz and Schmeiser, 2010b). It contains accounts of the filaments׳ bending stiffness, of adhesion to the substrate, and of cross-links connecting the two families.

An extension of the model is presented with contributions from nucleation of filaments by branching, from capping, from contraction by actin–myosin interaction, and from a pressure-like repulsion between parallel filaments due to Coulomb interaction. The effect of a chemoattractant is described by a simple signal transduction model influencing the polymerization speed. Simulations with the extended model show its potential for describing various moving cell shapes, depending on the signal transduction procedure, and for predicting transients between non-moving and moving states as well as changes of direction.