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Cell migration is critical for many vital processes, such as wound healing, as well as harmful processes, such as cancer metastasis. Experiments have highlighted the diversity in migration strategies employed by cells in physiologically relevant environments. In 3D fibrous matrices and confinement between two surfaces, some cells migrate using round membrane protrusions, called blebs. In bleb-based migration, the role of substrate adhesion is thought to be minimal, and it remains unclear if a cell can migrate without any adhesion complexes. We present a 2D computational fluid-structure model of a cell using cycles of bleb expansion and retraction in a channel with several geometries. The cell model consists of a plasma membrane, an underlying actin cortex, and viscous cytoplasm. Cellular structures are immersed in viscous fluid which permeates them, and the fluid equations are solved using the method of regularized Stokeslets. Simulations show that the cell cannot effectively migrate when the actin cortex is modeled as a purely elastic material. We find that cells do migrate in rigid channels if actin turnover is included with a viscoelastic description for the cortex. Our study highlights the non-trivial relationship between cell rheology and its external environment during migration with cytoplasmic streaming. 

Nematocysts are stinging organelles used by members of the phylum Cnidaria (e.g., jellyfish, anemones, hydrozoans) for a variety of important functions including capturing prey and defense. Nematocysts are the fastest-known accelerating structures in the animal world. The small scale (microns) coupled with rapid acceleration (in excess of 5 million g) present significant challenges in imaging that prevent detailed descriptions of their kinematics. The immersed boundary method was used to numerically simulate the dynamics of a barb-like structure accelerating a short distance across Reynolds numbers ranging from 0.9–900 towards a passive elastic target in two dimensions. Results indicate that acceleration followed by coasting at lower Reynolds numbers is not sufficient for a nematocyst to reach its target. The nematocyst’s barb-like projectile requires high accelerations in order to transition to the inertial regime and overcome the viscous damping effects normally encountered at small cellular scales. The longer the barb is in the inertial regime, the higher the final velocity of the projectile when it touches its target. We find the size of the target prey does not dramatically affect the barb’s approach for large enough values of the Reynolds number, however longer barbs are able to accelerate a larger amount of surrounding fluid, which in turn allows the barb to remain in the inertial regime for a longer period of time. Since the final velocity is proportional to the force available for piercing the membrane of the prey, high accelerations that allow the system to persist in the inertial regime have implications for the nematocyst’s ability to puncture surfaces such as cellular membranes or even crustacean cuticle.