Home▸Biology▸Cytoskeleton and Cell Motility

🧬 Cytoskeleton and Cell Motility

Animated 3D cell showing actin filaments and microtubules polymerizing to drive membrane protrusion, with sliders for polymerization rate and motor-protein activity to watch the cell crawl across a surface.

Biology2DModerate60 FPS

A crawling cell rebuilds its internal scaffolding on the fly: branched actin filaments polymerize at the leading edge to push the membrane forward while myosin motor proteins contract the rear, and a microtubule network radiating from the centrosome keeps the whole process organized.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

Actin polymerization at the front generates the pushing force behind lamellipodial protrusion, while myosin-driven contraction at the rear retracts the trailing edge — together producing net forward crawling.

🎮 How to Use

Raise actin polymerization to bulge the leading edge further and faster, raise myosin activity to strengthen rear contraction, and adjust microtubule dynamics to see the internal network grow and shrink. Watch crawl speed and distance update live.

💡 Did You Know?

Because actin monomers are added at the front and removed at the back at similar rates, the filament network appears almost stationary relative to the substrate even as it drives the whole cell forward — a phenomenon called "treadmilling."

⚙ Under the hood

cytoskeletonactinmicrotubulescell-motilitycell-biologymolecular-motors

2D · HTML5 Canvas 2D · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install