Green Comprehensive Center for Computational and Systems Biology, Department of Pharmacology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States of America.
PLoS Comput Biol. 2011 Apr;7(4):e1001121. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1001121. Epub 2011 Apr 28.
Polarization, a primary step in the response of an individual eukaryotic cell to a spatial stimulus, has attracted numerous theoretical treatments complementing experimental studies in a variety of cell types. While the phenomenon itself is universal, details differ across cell types, and across classes of models that have been proposed. Most models address how symmetry breaking leads to polarization, some in abstract settings, others based on specific biochemistry. Here, we compare polarization in response to a stimulus (e.g., a chemoattractant) in cells typically used in experiments (yeast, amoebae, leukocytes, keratocytes, fibroblasts, and neurons), and, in parallel, responses of several prototypical models to typical stimulation protocols. We find that the diversity of cell behaviors is reflected by a diversity of models, and that some, but not all models, can account for amplification of stimulus, maintenance of polarity, adaptation, sensitivity to new signals, and robustness.
极化作用是单细胞对空间刺激做出反应的首要步骤，它引起了许多理论上的研究，与不同细胞类型的实验研究相辅相成。虽然该现象具有普遍性，但在不同细胞类型和不同模型类别中，细节存在差异，这些模型有的是在抽象环境下提出的，有的则基于特定的生物化学原理。在这里，我们比较了细胞对刺激（例如趋化因子）的极化作用，这些细胞通常用于实验（酵母、变形虫、白细胞、角质细胞、成纤维细胞和神经元），并比较了几种典型模型对典型刺激方案的反应。我们发现，细胞行为的多样性反映在模型的多样性上，有些模型（但不是所有模型）可以解释刺激的放大、极性的维持、适应、对新信号的敏感性和鲁棒性。
