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Curr Biol

Title:		Tracking shallow chemical gradients by actin-driven wandering of the polarization site
Author(s):		Dyer JM; Savage NS; Jin M; Zyla TR; Elston TC; Lew DJ;
Address:		"Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA"
Journal Title:		Curr Biol
Year:		2013
Volume:		20121129
Issue:		1
Page Number:		32 - 41
DOI:		10.1016/j.cub.2012.11.014
ISSN/ISBN:		1879-0445 (Electronic) 0960-9822 (Print) 0960-9822 (Linking)
Abstract:		"BACKGROUND: Many cells are remarkably proficient at tracking very shallow chemical gradients, despite considerable noise from stochastic receptor-ligand interactions. Motile cells appear to undergo a biased random walk: spatial noise in receptor activity may determine the instantaneous direction, but because noise is spatially unbiased, it is filtered out by time averaging, resulting in net movement upgradient. How nonmotile cells might filter out noise is unknown. RESULTS: Using yeast chemotropic mating as a model, we demonstrate that a polarized patch of polarity regulators 'wanders' along the cortex during gradient tracking. Computational and experimental findings suggest that actin-directed membrane traffic contributes to wandering by diluting local polarity factors. The pheromone gradient appears to bias wandering via interactions between receptor-activated Gbetagamma and polarity regulators. Artificially blocking patch wandering impairs gradient tracking. CONCLUSIONS: We suggest that the polarity patch undergoes an intracellular biased random walk that enables noise filtering by time averaging, allowing nonmotile cells to track shallow gradients"
Keywords:		"Actins/metabolism/physiology *Cell Polarity Chemotaxis Pheromones/physiology Saccharomyces cerevisiae/*cytology/metabolism/physiology Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins/analysis/metabolism/physiology Time Factors cdc42 GTP-Binding Protein, Saccharomyces ce;"
Notes:		"MedlineDyer, Jayme M Savage, Natasha S Jin, Meng Zyla, Trevin R Elston, Timothy C Lew, Daniel J eng GM62300/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ GM84071/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ R01 GM062300/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ T32 HD040372/HD/NICHD NIH HHS/ R01 GM079271/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ GM79271/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ R01 GM084071/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural England 2012/12/04 Curr Biol. 2013 Jan 7; 23(1):32-41. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2012.11.014. Epub 2012 Nov 29"