  Cell migration, which can be significantly affected by intracellular
signaling pathways (ICSP) and extracellular matrix (ECM), plays a crucial role
in many physiological and pathological processes. The efficiency of cell
migration, which is typically modeled as a persistent random walk (PRW),
depends on two critical motility parameters, i.e., migration speed and
persistence. It is generally very challenging to efficiently and accurately
extract these key dynamics parameters from noisy experimental data. Here, we
employ the normalized Shannon entropy to quantify the deviation of cell
migration dynamics from that of diffusive/ballistic motion as well as to derive
the persistence of cell migration based on the Fourier power spectrum of
migration velocities. Moreover, we introduce the time-varying Shannon entropy
based on the wavelet power spectrum of cellular dynamics and demonstrate its
superior utility to characterize the time-dependent persistence of cell
migration, which is typically resulted from complex and time-varying intra or
extra-cellular mechanisms. We employ our approach to analyze trajectory data of
in vitro cell migration regulated by distinct intracellular and extracellular
mechanisms, exhibiting a rich spectrum of dynamic characteristics. Our analysis
indicates that the combination of Shannon entropy and wavelet transform offers
a simple and efficient tool to estimate the persistence of cell migration,
which may also reflect the real-time effects of ICSP-ECM to some extent.
