Title: | Chemotactic movement of a polarity site enables yeast cells to find their mates |
Author(s): | Ghose D; Jacobs K; Ramirez S; Elston T; Lew D; |
Address: | "Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Duke University, Durham, NC 27710. Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710. Department of Pharmacology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599. Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710; daniel.lew@duke.edu" |
ISSN/ISBN: | 1091-6490 (Electronic) 0027-8424 (Print) 0027-8424 (Linking) |
Abstract: | "How small eukaryotic cells can interpret dynamic, noisy, and spatially complex chemical gradients to orient growth or movement is poorly understood. We address this question using Saccharomyces cerevisiae, where cells orient polarity up pheromone gradients during mating. Initial orientation is often incorrect, but polarity sites then move around the cortex in a search for partners. We find that this movement is biased by local pheromone gradients across the polarity site: that is, movement of the polarity site is chemotactic. A bottom-up computational model recapitulates this biased movement. The model reveals how even though pheromone-bound receptors do not mimic the shape of external pheromone gradients, nonlinear and stochastic effects combine to generate effective gradient tracking. This mechanism for gradient tracking may be applicable to any cell that searches for a target in a complex chemical landscape" |
Keywords: | *Cell Polarity *Chemotaxis Computational Biology/methods Saccharomyces cerevisiae/*cytology/metabolism/physiology Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins/metabolism cell polarity chemotropism modeling pheromone yeast; |
Notes: | "MedlineGhose, Debraj Jacobs, Katherine Ramirez, Samuel Elston, Timothy Lew, Daniel eng P30 ES010126/ES/NIEHS NIH HHS/ R35 GM122488/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ R35 GM127145/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ T32 GM136627/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ R01 GM103870/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't 2021/05/30 Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Jun 1; 118(22):e2025445118. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2025445118" |