Cell motility on flat substrates exhibits coexisting steady and oscillatory morphodynamics, the biphasic adhesion-velocity relation, and the universal correlation between speed and persistence (UCSP) as simultaneous observations common to many cell types. Their universality and concurrency suggest a unifying mechanism causing all three of them. Stick-slip models for cells on 1dimensional lanes suggest multistability to arise from the non-linear friction of retrograde flow. This study suggests a mechanical mechanism controlled by integrin signalling on the basis of a biophysical model and analysis of trajectories of MDA-MB-231 cells on Fibronectin lanes which additionally explains the constitutive relations. The experiments exhibit cells with steady or oscillatory morphodynamics and either spread or moving with spontaneous transitions between the dynamic regimes, spread and moving and spontaneous direction reversals. Our biophysical model is based on the force balance at the protrusion edge, the noisy clutch of retrograde flow and a response function of friction and membrane drag to integrin signaling. The theory reproduces the experimentally observed cell states, characteristics of oscillations and state probabilities. Analysis of experiments with the biophysical model establishes a stick-slip oscillation mechanism, explains multistability of cell states and the statistics of state transitions. It suggests protrusion competition to cause direction reversal events, the statistics of which explain the UCSP. The effect of integrin signalling on drag and friction explains the adhesion-velocity relation and cell behavior at Fibronectin density steps. The dynamics of our mechanism are non-linear flow mechanics driven by F-actin polymerization and shaped by the noisy clutch of retrograde flow friction, protrusion competition via membrane tension and drag forces. Integrin signalling controls the parameters of the mechanical system.

On multistability and constitutive relations of cell motion on fibronectin lanes [Data set]

This repository provides the raw data underlying the research article On multistability and constitutive relations of cell motion on fibronectin lanes published in Biophysical Journal 2023. The data are scanning time-lapse image stacks of MDA-MB-231 H2B mCherry cells migrating on Fibronectin lanes. For each experimental condition, a multitude of fields of view were imaged. The data were recorded in two different temporal resolutions, 30 s and 10 min, respectively, for a duration of up to 48 h.

For a comprehensive description of the below data sets, see sections 'Materials and Methods' and 'S1 Data Sets' of our publication.

Structure

Each data set contains tif-stacks for the phase contrast channel showing cell contours (BF) and for the mCherry channel showing the labeled nuclei (nucleus). XY indicates the field of view of each stack. tif-images in the pattern folder correspond to fluorescent images of the Fibronectin pattern at each field of view taken directly before the time-lapse stack. The first 4 digits of each tif-file indicate the date of the experiment, in the format YMD, e.g. 211119 corresponds to 19. November 2021. The temporal resolution is indicated in the name of the data set and in the name of each tif-stack ( 30s/10min). Each folder contains a csv-file with the original metadata as recorded by the Nikon Eclipse Ti microscope used for this study.

Examples

From left to right: Phase contrast, nucleus (mCherry) and pattern (Alexa 647) image of the same field of view.
Example images taken from 211119_FN-lines_10min_XY001 at t=100.

Data Sets

Data Set	Temporal Resolution	Treatment	Number of Measurements
data_set_1_ctrl_30s	30s	control	4
data_set_2_lat_30s	30s	latrunculin A	4
data_set_3_blebb_30s	30s	blebbistatin	4
data_set_4_ctrl_10min	10min	control	5
data_set_5_lat_10min	10min	latrunculin A	5
data_set_6_blebb_10min	10min	blebbistatin	4
data_set_7_untreated_10min	10min	untreated	1

Experimental Metadata

Property	Value
basicApproach	in vitro
cellModel	cell line
assay	single-cell migration
treatment	control (DMSO) / latrunculin A / blebbistatin / untreated
microEnvironment	Fibronectin coated lanes on ibidi µ-dish
medium	L15 + 10% FBS
cellType	MDA-MB-231 H2B mCherry
organism	Homo Sapiens
modality	phase-contrast, fluorescence microscopy
imageSequenceType	time-series
observationPeriod	48
observationPeriodUnit	hours
timeSeriesInterval	30 / 6000
timeSeriesIntervalUnit	seconds
pixels	1.32
objectiveLens	Nikon CFI Plan Fluor DL 10x
numericalAperture	0.3

Contact

Corresponding author: Joachim O. Rädler, Fakultät für Physik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU), Munich, Germany, raedler@lmu.de

Johannes C. J. Heyn and Christoph Schreiber executed experiments.