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Principles that govern competition or co-existence in Rho-GTPase driven polarization

View ORCID ProfileJian-geng Chiou, Timothy C. Elston, Thomas P. Witelski, David G. Schaeffer, Daniel J. Lew
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/148064
Jian-geng Chiou
Duke University;
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Timothy C. Elston
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill;
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Thomas P. Witelski
Duke University;
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David G. Schaeffer
Duke University;
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Daniel J. Lew
Duke University School of Medicine
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  • For correspondence: daniel.lew@duke.edu
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Abstract

Rho-GTPases are master regulators of polarity establishment and cell morphology. Positive feedback enables concentration of Rho-GTPases into clusters at the cell cortex, from where they regulate the cytoskeleton. Different cell types reproducibly generate either one (e.g. the front of a migrating cell) or several clusters (e.g. the multiple dendrites of a neuron), but the mechanistic basis for uni-polar or multi-polar outcomes is unclear. The design principles of Rho-GTPase circuits are captured by reaction-diffusion models based on conserved aspects of Rho-GTPase biochemistry. Some such models display rapid winner-takes-all competition between clusters, yielding a unipolar outcome. Other models allow prolonged co-existence of clusters. We derive a “saturation rule” general to all relevant models that governs the timescale of competition, and thereby predicts whether the system will generate uni-polar or multi-polar outcomes. We suggest that the saturation rule is a fundamental property of the Rho-GTPase polarity machinery, regardless of the specific feedback mechanism.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
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Posted June 09, 2017.
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Principles that govern competition or co-existence in Rho-GTPase driven polarization
Jian-geng Chiou, Timothy C. Elston, Thomas P. Witelski, David G. Schaeffer, Daniel J. Lew
bioRxiv 148064; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/148064
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Principles that govern competition or co-existence in Rho-GTPase driven polarization
Jian-geng Chiou, Timothy C. Elston, Thomas P. Witelski, David G. Schaeffer, Daniel J. Lew
bioRxiv 148064; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/148064

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