INVESTIGADORES
COLMAN LERNER Alejandro Ariel
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
DYNAMICS OF GRADIENT SENSING IN SINGLE CELLS
Autor/es:
ALEJANDRA VENTURA; MATIAS GOLDÍN; ALAN BUSH; CHERNOMORETZ A; ALEJANDRO COLMAN LERNER
Lugar:
Puerto Madryn - Chubut
Reunión:
Congreso; SAIB 46th Annual Meeting Argentine Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology XLVI Reunión Anual Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular; 2010
Institución organizadora:
Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology XLVI Reunión Anual Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular
Resumen:
To choose a mating partner the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiaeSaccharomyces cerevisiae
detects mating pheromones produced by yeast of the opposite sex
using reversible binding to a GPCR. The non-motile yeast determine
the direction of a potential mating partner by measuring on which
side there are more bound receptors. This sensing modality can only
work when external pheromone does not saturate the receptors.
However, the behavior of yeast in dense mating mixtures indicates
that, even when pheromone concentration is much higher than the
equilibrium constant of pheromone with its receptor, yeast polarize
in the correct direction. How might yeast accurately determine
gradients at high concentrations? Using a systems biology approach
based on mathematical modeling and numerical simulations we
show that the actual binding dynamics of pheromone to the receptor
is such that enhances gradient determination in near saturating
conditions. We used the output of our simulations as input to a
published model of spontaneous emergence of cell polarity, and
show that the pheromone binding dynamics results in significantly
more precise polarization (in the direction of the gradient) than other
binding rates. Our results apply to other biological systems in similar
binding dynamics.