  The one-dimensional crawling movement of a cell is considered in this
theoretical study. Our active gel model shows that for a cell with weakly
mechanosensitive adhesion complexes, as myosin contractility increases, a cell
starts to move at a constant velocity. As the mechanosensitivity of the
adhesion complexes increases, a cell can exhibit stick-slip motion. Finally, a
cell with highly mechanosensitive adhesion complexes exhibits periodic
back-and-forth migration. A simplified model which assumes that the cell
crawling dynamics are controlled by the evolution of the myosin density dipole
and the asymmetry of adhesion complex distribution captures the motility
behaviors of crawling cells qualitatively. It suggests that the complex cell
crawling behaviors observed in the experiments could result from the interplay
between the distribution of contractile force and mechanosensitive bonds.

Soft Condensed Matter;Biological Physics