Scotland

In this paper we develop and extend a previous model of cell deformations, initially proposed to describe the dynamical behaviour of round-shaped cells such as ker-atinocytes or leukocytes, in order to take into account cell pseudopodial dynamics with large amplitude membrane deformations such as those observed in fibroblasts. Beyond the simulation (from a quantitative, parametrized model) of the experimen-tally observed oscillatory cell deformations, a final goal of this work is to under-line that a set of common assumptions regarding intracellular actin dynamics and associated cell membrane local motion allows us to describe a wide variety of cell morphologies and protrusive activity. The model proposed describes cell membrane deformations as a consequence of the endogenous cortical actin dynamics where the driving force for large-amplitude ∗Corresponding address: Institut de l’Ingénierie de l’Information de Santé, Faculte ́ de Médecin