Amoeboid leukocyte crawling through extracellular matrix: lessons from the Dictyostelium paradigm of cell movement

Abstract: Cell movement within three-dimen-sional tissues is a cycling multistep process that requires the integration of complex biochemical and biophysical cell functions. Different cells solve this challenge differently, which leads to differ-ences in migration strategies. Migration principles established for leukocytes share many characteris-tics with those described for ameba of the lower eukaryote Dictyostelium discoideum. The hall-marks of amoeboid movement include a simple polarized shape, dynamic pseudopod protrusion and retraction, flexible oscillatory shape changes, and rapid low-affinity crawling. Amoeboid crawling includes haptokinetic adhesion-dependent as well as biophysical migration mechanisms on or within many structurally and functionally different sub-strates. We describe central aspects of amoeboid movement in leukocytes and the implications for leukocyte crawling and positioning strategies within interstitial tissues. J. Leukoc. Biol. 70: 491–509; 2001. Key Words: T lymphocytes z collagen matrix z cytoskeletal dy-namics z migration strategie