Abstract Dieterich:

The ability of biological cells to migrate towards chemoattractants is essential for many (patho-)physiological processes such as wound healing or tumor metastasis. Chemotaxis is transduced by complex molecular signaling cascades coupling to the intrinsic cell migration machinery. The overall effect can be assessed with time-lapse video microscopy of single migrating cells. We analyze experimental paths of cells within the concept of stochastic processes to gain further insight into the biological activities. The cell is regarded as an object driven by internally correlated stochastic forces and external fields generated by chemoattractants. The analysis is applied to neutrophiles and tumor like transformed MDCK-F cells. Even in a homogeneous environment, both cell types show a variety of anomalous properties as superdiffusion that can be characterized by strong temporal correlations and within the framework of a fractional Klein-Kramers equation. The anomalous behavior is even conserved under the influence of chemoattractants which might be useful for an appropriate response to chemoattractants.