Prescripted cellular course.

(A) Desired cellular output; (B) Imposed externally controlled mechanotactic signal; (C) Measured cellular displacement in the direction for 3 distinct cells with a different color for each cell. The observed small differences in cellular response between the three cells are rooted in the biological variability of this sample. The initial positions of the 3 cells have been arbitrarily shifted to circumvent the overlapping of the plots; (D) Instantaneous snapshot of the 3 cells in the observation area at instant s. The double red arrow indicates the mechanostimulus direction. See SI Movie S1 for the complete migration of these 3 cells. The calcium concentration is 3 mM and the complete duration of the cellular course is 2600 seconds or 43 minutes. Cells are crawling over a plastic hydrophobic surface.