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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 43: Pattern Formation - organized by Azam Gholami (Göttingen)

DY 43.5: Vortrag

Mittwoch, 24. März 2021, 15:20–15:40, DYa

A hierarchy of protein patterns robustly decodes cell shape information — •Tzer Han Tan^1,4, Manon C. Wigbers², Fridtjof Brauns², Jinghui Liu¹, Zak Swartz³, Erwin Frey², and Nikta Fakhri¹ — ¹MIT, Cambridge, USA — ²LMU, Munich, Germany — ³Whitehead Institute, Cambridge, USA — ⁴MPI-CBG, Dresden, Germany

Many cellular processes rely on precise positioning of proteins on the membrane. Such protein patterns emerge from a combination of protein interactions, transport, conformational state changes, and chemical reactions at the molecular level. Recent experimental and theoretical work clearly demonstrates the role of geometry and advective cortical flow in modulating membrane protein patterns. How can regulatory proteins form a robust spatiotemporal organization on the membrane in the face of dynamic cell-shape changes during physiological processes? Here, we use the oocytes of the starfish Patiria miniata as a model system and elucidate a shape-adaptation mechanism that robustly controls spatiotemporal protein dynamics on the membrane despite cell-shape deformations. By combining experiments with biophysical theory, we show how cell-shape information contained in a cytosolic gradient can be decoded by a bistable regulator of Rho. In turn, this bistable front precisely controls a mechanochemical response by locally triggering excitable dynamics of Rho. We posit that such a shape-adaptation mechanism based on a hierarchy of protein patterns may constitute a general physical principle for cell-shape sensing and control.