Abstract

The interior of the living cells is a complex systems where multiple biochemical processes happen simultaneously. The locomotion of the cells is preceded by the definition of the front and tail in a process called polarization. To describe such biochemical process and due to the high level of interferences, generic models of cell polarization are commonly employed. Polarization is typically described by Reaction-Diffusion processes together with relatively strong fluctuations. To recover the interplay between polarization and cell locomotion a dynamical phase field to separate the exterior and the interior of the cell (where the stochastic reaction-diffusion process occurs) has been revealed as a very convenient tool. I will discuss some applications of the phase field to describe and characterize the crawling of the Dictyostelium discoideum, a social amoebae.