Open AccessEukaryotic chemotaxis
Author(s) -
Rappel WouterJan,
Loomis William F.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
wiley interdisciplinary reviews: systems biology and medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.087
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1939-005X
pISSN - 1939-5094
DOI - 10.1002/wsbm.28
Subject(s) - chemotaxis , computer science , polarity (international relations) , microfluidics , motility , biology , nanotechnology , computational biology , biological system , microbiology and biotechnology , materials science , cell , biochemistry , genetics , receptor
During eukaryotic chemotaxis, external chemical gradients guide the crawling motion of cells. This process plays an important role in a large variety of biological systems and has wide ranging medical implications. New experimental techniques including confocal microscopy and microfluidics have advanced our understanding of chemotaxis while numerical modeling efforts are beginning to offer critical insights. In this short review, we survey the current experimental status of the field by dividing chemotaxis into three distinct ‘modules’: directional sensing, polarity and motility. For each module, we attempt to point out potential new directions of research and discuss how modeling studies interact with experimental investigations. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. This article is categorized under: Models of Systems Properties and Processes > Cellular Models