A DIFFUSE INTERFACE MODEL FOR CELL BLEBBING INCLUDING MEMBRANE-CORTEX COUPLING WITH LINKER DYNAMICS\ast

The aim of this paper is to develop suitable models for the phenomenon of cell blebbing, which allow for computational predictions of mechanical effects, including the crucial interaction of the cell membrane and the actin cortex. For this sake we resort to a two phase field model that uses diffuse descriptions of both the membrane and the cortex, which in particular allows for a suitable description of the interaction via linker protein densities. Besides the detailed modeling we discuss some energetic aspects of the models and present a numerical scheme, which allows us to carry out several computational studies. In those we demonstrate that several effects found in experiments can be reproduced, in particular bleb formation by cortex rupture, which was not possible by previous models without the linker dynamics.

Automated summary

The aim of this paper is to develop suitable models for cell blebbing phenomenon and predict the mechanical effects, including the interaction between cell membrane and actin cortex. A two-phase field model is employed, which uses diffuse descriptions of both membrane and cortex and allows for a proper description of interaction via linker protein densities. In addition to the detailed modeling, some energetic aspects of the models are discussed, and a numerical scheme is presented for computational studies. The results demonstrate that several effects found in experiments, particularly bleb formation by cortex rupture, can be reproduced, which was not possible with previous models lacking linker dynamics.