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Zebrafish airinemes optimize their shape between ballistic and diffusive search.

Sohyeon Park¹, Hyunjoong Kim², Yi Wang³

¹Center for Complex Biological Systems, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, United States.

|April 25, 2022

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This summary is machine-generated.

Cellular protrusions called airinemes in zebrafish use a balanced search strategy to find target cells. Their shape optimizes contact probability, balancing straight and random movements for efficient cell communication.

Area of Science:

Cell Biology
Biophysics
Developmental Biology

Background:

Cells communicate through various methods, including direct physical contact via cellular protrusions.
Airinemes are long, thin cellular extensions in zebrafish crucial for cell-cell communication.
Efficient targeting by these protrusions is essential for establishing communication.

Purpose of the Study:

To model the search behavior of airinemes using a persistent random walk model.
To determine the optimal shape parameters for airineme-mediated target cell contact.
To investigate the trade-offs between search efficiency and directional information for target cells.

Main Methods:

Analysis of airineme shapes from live-cell microscopy in zebrafish.
Application of a finite persistent random walk model to describe protrusion dynamics.

Keywords:

cell biology cellular projection pattern formation physics of living systems stochastic search zebrafish

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Theoretical exploration of search optimality and directional inference.

Main Results:

Airineme shapes align with predictions from a finite persistent random walk model.
Optimal target cell contact probability is achieved with a balance between ballistic and diffusive movement.
Observed airineme curvature matches the theoretical optimum for this balanced search.

Conclusions:

Airineme morphology in zebrafish is shaped by principles of efficient random search.
The study provides a framework for understanding the biophysics of non-canonical cellular protrusions.
There is a theoretical trade-off between search efficiency and directional sensing in cell communication.