Cellular processes like proliferation, differentiation, and migration play a crucial role in cancer metastasis, wound healing, immune cell trafficking, etc. It is well known that cells respond strongly to physical properties of extracellular matrices (ECM). However, how cells sense physical properties like stiffness, viscosity, and plasticity remains unclear. This is in part due to a lack of modeling frameworks which integrate various chemo-mechanical signaling. Our work aims at developing theoretical models and computational tools integrating diverse cellular process to gain mechanistic insights on how cell behavior is affected by changes in the mechanical properties of their microenvironment.

Relevant contributions and publications

Z. Gong, K. van den Dries, R.A. Migueles-Ramírez, P.W. Wiseman, A. Cambi, and V.B. Shenoy
Chemo-mechanical diffusion waves explain collective dynamics of immune cell podosomes.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS, 14(1), 2902, 2022.

K. Adebowale, Z. Gong, J. C. Hou, K. M. Wisdom, D. Garbett, H. Lee, S. Nam, T. Meyer, D. J. Odde, V. B. Shenoy, and O. Chaudhuri
Enhanced substrate stress relaxation promotes filopodia-mediated cell migration.
NATURE MATERIALS, 20, pages1290–1299, 2021

Z. Gong, K. M. Wisdom, E. McEvoy, J. Chang, K. Adebowale, C.C. Price, O. Chaudhuri and V.B. Shenoy
Recursive feedback between matrix dissipation and chemo-mechanical signaling drives oscillatory growth of cancer cell invadopodia.
CELL REPORTS, 35, 109047, 2021

V.B. Shenoy, H. Wang, X. Wang
A chemo-mechanical free-energy-based approach to model durotaxis and extracellular stiffness-dependent contraction and polarization of cells.
Interface focus 6, 1: 20150067, 2016