Recommended Citation
Varennes, Julien; Moon, Hye-ran; Saha, Soutick; Mugler, Andrew; and Han, Bumsoo, "Physical constraints on accuracy and persistence during breast cancer cell chemotaxis" (2019). Purdue University Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund. Paper 216.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006961
DOI
10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006961
Date of this Version
4-10-2019
Keywords
chemotaxis, breast cancer, microfluidics, cell migration, collagens, cell motility, simulation and modeling, metastasis
Abstract
Directed cell motion in response to an external chemical gradient occurs in many biological phenomena such as wound healing, angiogenesis, and cancer metastasis. Chemotaxis is often characterized by the accuracy, persistence, and speed of cell motion, but whether any of these quantities is physically constrained by the others is poorly understood. Using a combination of theory, simulations, and 3D chemotaxis assays on single metastatic breast cancer cells, we investigate the links among these different aspects of chemotactic performance. In particular, we observe in both experiments and simulations that the chemotactic accuracy, but not the persistence or speed, increases with the gradient strength. We use a random walk model to explain this result and to propose that cells’ chemotactic accuracy and persistence are mutually constrained. Our results suggest that key aspects of chemotactic performance are inherently limited regardless of how favorable the environmental conditions are.
Comments
This is the publisher PDF of Varennes J, Moon H-r, Saha S, Mugler A, Han B (2019) Physical constraints on accuracy and persistence during breast cancer cell chemotaxis. PLoS Computational Biology 15(4): e1006961. This article is distributed under a CC-BY license, and is available at DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006961.