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Balancing at the edge of excitability: implications for cell movement

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Abstract

Cells rely on the ability to sense and respond to small spatial differences in chemoattractant concentrations for survival. There is growing evidence that this is accomplished by setting the signaling system near the threshold for activation in an excitable system and using the spatial heterogeneities to alter the threshold, thereby biasing cell activity in the direction of the gradient. Here we consider a scheme by which the set point is adaptively set near the bifurcation point, but without explicit knowledge of this point. Through simulation, we show that the method would improve chemotactic efficiency of cells. The results of this paper are based on pioneering work by Eduardo Sontag and coworkers, to whom this paper is dedicated in honor of his 70th birthday.

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Acknowledgements

We thank members of the Iglesias laboratory for useful conversations, particularly Sayak Bhattacharya. PAI also wishes to thank Eduardo Sontag for many years of interesting and fruitful discussions. It is an honor to consider him a colleague.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics, The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, USA

    Debojyoti Biswas

  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, USA

    Debojyoti Biswas & Pablo A. Iglesias

  3. Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, USA

    Parijat Banerjee

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  1. Debojyoti Biswas
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Correspondence to Pablo A. Iglesias.

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Biswas, D., Banerjee, P. & Iglesias, P.A. Balancing at the edge of excitability: implications for cell movement. Math. Control Signals Syst. 36, 121–137 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00498-023-00361-6

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