Cell migration in complex environments: chemotaxis and topographical obstacles

Cell migration is a complex phenomenon that plays an important role in many biological processes. Our aim here is to build and study models of reduced complexity to describe some aspects of cell motility in tissues. Precisely, we study the impact of some biochemical and mechanical cues on the cell dynamics in a 2D framework. For that purpose, we model the cell as an active particle with a velocity solution to a particular Stochastic Differential Equation that describes the intracellular dynamics as well as the presence of some biochemical cues. In the 1D case, an asymptotic analysis puts to light a transition between migration dominated by the cell’s internal activity and migration dominated by an external signal. In a second step, we use the contact algorithm introduced in [15,18] to describe the cell dynamics in an environment with obstacles. In the 2D case, we study how a cell submitted to a constant directional force that mimics the action of chemoattractant, behaves in the presence of obstacles. We numerically observe the existence of a velocity value that the cell can not exceed even if the directional force intensity increases. We find that this threshold value depends on the number of obstacles. Our result confirms a result that was already observed in a discrete framework in [3,4]

Etude du mouvement de solides rigides dans un fluide visqueux

This thesis is devoted to the mathematical analysis of the problem of motion of afinite number of homogeneous rigid bodies within a homogeneous incompressible viscous fluid. Viscous fluids are classified into two categories: Newtonian fluids, and non-Newtonian fluids. First, we consider the system formed by the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations coupled with Newton’s laws to describe the movement of several rigid disks within a homogeneous viscous Newtonian fluid in the whole space R^2. We show the well-posedness of this system up to the occurrence of the first collision. Then we eliminate all type of contacts that may occur if the fluid domain remains connected at any time. With this assumption, the considered system is well-posed globally in time. In the second part of this thesis, we prove the non-uniqueness of weak solutions to the fluid-rigid body interaction problem in 3D in Newtonian fluid after collision. We show that there exist some initial conditions such that we can extend weak solutions after the time for which contact has taken place by two different ways. Finally, in the last part, we study the two-dimensional motion of a finite number of disks immersed in a cavity filled with a viscoelastic fluid such as polymeric solutions. The incompressible Navier–Stokes equations are used to model the flow of the solvent, in which the elastic extra stress tensor appears as a source term. In this part, we suppose that the extra stress tensor satisfies either the Oldroyd or the regularized Oldroyd constitutive differential law. In both cases, we prove the existence and uniqueness of local-in-time strongsolutions of the considered moving-boundary problem.Cette thèse est consacrée à l’analyse mathématique du problème du mouvement d’un nombre fini de corps rigides homogènes au sein d’un fluide visqueux incompressible homogène. Les fluides visqueux sont classés en deux catégories: les fluides newtoniens et les fluides non newtoniens. En premier lieu, nous considérons le système formé par les équations de Navier Stokes incompressible couplées aux lois de Newton pour décrire le mouvement de plusieurs disques rigides dans un fluide newtonien visqueux homogène dans l’ensemble de l’espace R^2. Nous montrons que ce problème est bien posé jusqu’à l’apparition de la première collision. Ensuite, nous éliminons tous les types de contacts pouvant survenir si le domaine fluide reste connexe à tout moment. Avec cette hypothèse, le système considéré est globalement bien posé. Dans la deuxième partie de cette thèse, nous montrons la non-unicité des solutions faibles au problème d’interaction fluide-solide 3D, dans le cas d’un fluide newtonien, après collision. Nous montrons qu’il existe des conditions initiales telles que nous pouvons étendre les solutions faibles après le temps pour lequel le contact a eu lieu de deux manières différentes. Enfin, dans la dernière partie, nous étudions le mouvement bidimensionnel d’un nombre fini de disques immergés dans une cavité remplie d’un fluide viscoélastique tel que des solutions polymériques. Les équations de Navier Stokes incompressible sont utilisées pour modéliser le solvant, dans lesquelles un tenseur de contrainte élastique supplémentaire apparaît comme un terme source. Dans cette partie, nous supposons que le tenseur de contrainte supplémentaire satisfait la loi différentielle d’Oldroyd ou sa version régularisée. Dans les deux cas, nous prouvons l’existence et l’unicité des solutions fortes locales en temps du problème considéré

Non-homogeneous magnetic permeability and magnetic steps within the Ginzburg–Landau model

We study the Ginzburg–Landau model in the frame of non-homogeneous magnetic permeabilities and non-homogeneous applied magnetic fields. We establish a continuity result with respect to the applied magnetic field and the magnetic permeability coefficient, thereby motivating the consideration of a discontinuous magnetic field/permeability within the sample. We then study the model in the regime of a large Ginzburg–Landau parameter and strong applied magnetic fields. The discontinuity of the magnetic permeability term leads to regularity issues, which we handle by energy arguments

Cell migration in complex environments: chemotaxis and topographical obstacles

International audienceCell migration is a complex phenomenon that plays an important role in many biological processes. Our aim here is to build and study models of reduced complexity to describe some aspects of cell motility in tissues. Precisely, we study the impact of some biochemical and mechanical cues on the cell dynamics in a 2D framework. For that purpose, we model the cell as an active particle with a velocity solution to a particular Stochastic Differential Equation that describes the intracellular dynamics as well as the presence of some biochemical cues. In the 1D case, an asymptotic analysis puts to light a transition between migration dominated by the cell's internal activity and migration dominated by an external signal. In a second step, we use the contact algorithm introduced in [16, 19] to describe the cell dynamics in a crowded environment. In the 2D case, we study how a cell submitted to a constant directional force that mimics the action of chemoattractant, behaves in the presence of obstacles. We numerically observe the existence of a velocity value that the cell can not exceed even if the directional force intensity increases. We find that this threshold value depends on the number of obstacles. Our result confirms a result that was already observed in a discrete framework in [4]