Physical limits on cellular directional mechanosensing
Name
Bouffanais-2013-Physical limits on cellular directional mechanosensing.pdf
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258.19 KB
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Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Bouffanais, Roland
Sun, Jianmin
Yue, Dick K. P.
Date Issued
May 2013
Journal
Physical Review E
Publisher
American Physical Society
Citation
Bouffanais, Roland, Jianmin Sun, and Dick K. P. Yue. “Physical limits on cellular directional mechanosensing.” Physical Review E 87, no. 5 (May 2013). © 2013 American Physical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Many eukaryotic cells are able to perform directional mechanosensing by directly measuring minute spatial differences in the mechanical stress on their membranes. Here, we explore the limits of a single mechanosensitive channel activation using a two-state double-well model for the gating mechanism. We then focus on the physical limits of directional mechanosensing by a single cell having multiple mechanosensors and subjected to a shear flow inducing a nonuniform membrane tension. Our results demonstrate that the accuracy in sensing the mechanostimulus direction not only increases with cell size and exposure to a signal, but also grows for cells with a near-critical membrane prestress. Finally, the existence of a nonlinear threshold effect, fundamentally limiting the cell's ability to effectively perform directional mechanosensing at a low signal-to-noise ratio, is uncovered.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. School of Engineering
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.87.052716
