Chemotaxis: linking cell shape, behaviour and strategy

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• Robert Endres, Imperial College, London, UK
• Tuesday 20 September 2011, 09:30-09:55
• MR2, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Wilberforce Road, Cambridge.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Duncan Simpson.

Chemotaxis allows cells to sense and migrate towards chemicals, and is fundamental to single-cell organisms, our immune response, cancer metastasis, learning and development. Interestingly, the process is remarkably accurate, allowing cells to chemotax in extremely shallow concentration gradients, corresponding to a difference of only a few ligand-bound receptors across cell length. What is the fundamental physical limit of detection for cells, and how can cells reach this limit? In this talk, I will present recent results on quantitatively describing data of Dictyostelium amoeba in a microfluidic chamber with highly controlled chemical gradients. Specifically, I will demonstrate that the chemotactic index, a measure of the accuracy of chemotaxis, is just a function of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of cell sensing, not the chemical gradient steepness or the average chemical concentration. Furthermore, mathematical analysis shows that cell shape and behaviour, although highly variable, are a function of the SNR . This links cell shape and behaviour with the cell’s strategy to reach the physical limit of detection.

http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/people/r.endres

This talk is part of the Physics of Living Matter PLM6 series.

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