Cell-to-cell variation sets a tissue-rheology-dependent bound on collective gradient sensing.

ABSTRACT: When a single cell senses a chemical gradient and chemotaxes, stochastic receptor-ligand binding can be a fundamental limit to the cell's accuracy. For clusters of cells responding to gradients, however, there is a critical difference: Even genetically identical cells have differing responses to chemical signals. With theory and simulation, we show collective chemotaxis is limited by cell-to-cell variation in signaling. We find that when different cells cooperate, the resulting bias can be much larger than the effects of ligand-receptor binding. Specifically, when a strongly responding cell is at one end of a cell cluster, cluster motion is biased toward that cell. These errors are mitigated if clusters average measurements over times long enough for cells to rearrange. In consequence, flu

SUBMITTER: Camley BA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5703308 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature