Dictyostelium discoideum adhesion and motility under shear flow: experimental and theoretical approaches.

Among the different assays to measure cell adhesion, shear-flow detachment chambers offer the advantage to study both passive and active aspects of the phenomena on large cell numbers. Mathematical modeling allows full exploitation of the data by relating molecular parameters to cell mechanics. Using D. discoideum as a model system, we explain how cell detachment kinetics gives access to the rate constants describing the passive association or dissociation of the cell membrane to a given substrate.