An investigation of design principles underlying repulsive and attractive gradient sensing and their switching

J. Krishnan (1) , Aiman Alam-Nazki

1 Respiratory Epidemiology and Public Health

Many important cellular processes rely on cellular responses to spatially graded signals. This response may be either attractive, indicating a positive bias, or repulsive indicating a negative bias. In this paper we consider cells which exhibit both repulsive and attractive gradient sensing responses and aim to uncover the underlying design principles and features of how the networks are wired which could allow a cell to exhibit both responses. We use a modular approach to examine different configurations which will allow for a cell to exhibit both responses and analyze how this depends on the basic characteristics of gradient sensing and downstream signal propagation. Overall our analysis provides insights into how gradient responses can be switched and the key factors which affect this switching.

Mots clés: Attractive biasing; Repulsive biasing; Directional migration; Chemoattraction; Chemorepulsion; Spatial sensing; Signal transduction; Polarity switch; Competing pathways; Spontaneous polarization

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

J. Krishnan, Aiman Alam-Nazki. An investigation of design principles underlying repulsive and attractive gradient sensing and their switching. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 2011, 273 (1), pp.80. ⟨10.1016/j.jtbi.2010.11.046⟩. ⟨hal-00669199⟩