Leading edge maintenance in migrating cells is an emergent property of branched actin network growth.

ABSTRACT: Animal cell migration is predominantly driven by the coordinated, yet stochastic, polymerization of thousands of nanometer-scale actin filaments across micron-scale cell leading edges. It remains unclear how such inherently noisy processes generate robust cellular behavior. We employed high-speed imaging of migrating neutrophil-like HL-60 cells to explore the fine-scale shape fluctuations that emerge and relax throughout the process of leading edge maintenance. We then developed a minimal stochastic model of the leading edge that reproduces this stable relaxation behavior. Remarkably, we find lamellipodial stability naturally emerges from the interplay between branched actin network growth and leading edge shape - with no additional feedback required - based on a synergy between mem

SUBMITTER: Garner RM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9033267 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature