[DBS seminar] Jonathan Ron, "Deterministic cell motility patterns across scales and sizes"

Thursday 6 Mar 2025, 14:15 → 15:15 Europe/Ljubljana

Seminar room of physics (106) (IJS)

Cell motility plays a crucial role in various biological processes, such as embryogenesis, wound healing, and immune response. Although the complex molecular machinery driving cell motility is relatively well understood, it remains unclear how cells exhibit such diverse migration patterns, both individually and collectively. This seminar will focus on a recently developed theoretical framework for cellular migration, which couples migration features such as polarization, speed, and size to traction forces and adhesion dynamics. The discussion will begin with the model's predictions for one-dimensional migration of single cells, emphasizing how symmetry is broken during directional decision-making. The model will then be extended to describe cell-cell interactions and the collective behavior of one-dimensional multicellular trains. A two-dimensional stochastic version of the model will also be introduced, explaining the run-and-tumble behavior commonly exhibited by cells. Finally, a new theory will be introduced, linking cell migration to volume regulation via active ion transport. The results presented in the seminar will be supported by extensive experimental validation conducted on various cell types.

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[1] Ron, J.E., Monzo, P., Gauthier, N.C., Voituriez, R. and Gov, N.S., 2020. One-dimensional cell motility patterns. Physical review research, 2(3), p.033237.

[2] Mukherjee, A., Ron, J.E., Hu, H.T., Nishimura, T., Hanawa‐Suetsugu, K., Behkam, B., Mimori‐Kiyosue, Y., Gov, N.S., Suetsugu, S. and Nain, A.S., 2023. Actin Filaments Couple the Protrusive Tips to the Nucleus through the I‐BAR Domain Protein IRSp53 during the Migration of Cells on 1D Fibers. Advanced science, 10(7), p.2207368.

[3] Ron, J. E., d'Alessandro, J., Cellerin, V., Voituriez, R., Ladoux, B., & Gov, N. S. (2023). Polarization and motility of one-dimensional multi-cellular trains. Biophysical Journal, 122(23), 4598-4613.

[4] Ron, J. E., Crestani, M., Kux, J. M., Liu, J., Al-Dam, N., Monzo, P., ... & Gov, N. S. (2024). Emergent seesaw oscillations during cellular directional decision-making. Nature Physics, 20(3), 501-511.