Different Cell Migration Modes: Insights From Traction Force Microscopy And Modeling

Recent work has shown that motile eukaryotic cells do not always adopt a single, conserved migration mode but can change between different modes. These transitions can be induced either by a change of the extracellular environment or by exposing cells to extracellular stimuli and may be crucial for many important biological processes, including embryological development, tissue homeostasis, immune defense and cancer metastasis. A striking example of these transitions occurs in the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. These cells normally migrate using an amoeboid-like mode during which actin rich pseudopods are repeatedly protruded and retracted, most likely due to an excitable pathway. Dictyostelium cells, however, can also migrate using a mode in which cells maintain a near-stationary morphology and move in a straight manner. Furthermore, they can also exhibit an oscillatory mode, during which the cells display a repeated cycle of spreading and contracting. In this study, we perform traction force microscopy to determine how the distribution of key signaling components are correlated to the experimentally obtained traction force patterns during the different migration modes. The experimental results are then compared to a mathematical model, capable of reproducing all three migration modes.