Brownian ratchet as a model of cell crawling

Statistical Physics and Complexity Group meeting

Brownian ratchet as a model of cell crawling

  • Event time: 11:30am
  • Event date: 17th October 2012
  • Speaker: Elsen Tjhung (Formerly School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh)
  • Location: Room 2511,

Event details

Some eukaryotic cells (e.g. Keratocyte) are able to crawl on a 2D substrate such as glass slides. This crawling motion is driven by actin filament polymerisation inside the cell. In this talk I will review the Brownian ratchet model to describe cell crawling and in particular I will derive the crawling velocity. References: Peskin CS, Odell GM, Oster G (1993) Biophys. J.; Mogilner A, Oster G (1996) Biophys. J.