Directional sensing and polarization are fundamental cellular responses that play a central
role in health and disease. In this review we define each process and evaluate a series of …

Polarization, a primary step in the response of an individual eukaryotic cell to a spatial
stimulus, has attracted numerous theoretical treatments complementing experimental …

Chemotaxis in eukaryotic cells involves the coordination of several related but separable
processes: motility, polarization, and gradient sensing. Mathematical models that have been …

The ability to sense and respond to shallow gradients of extracellular signals is remarkably
similar in Dictyostelium discoideum amoebae and mammalian leukocytes. Chemoattractant …

Mathematical and computational modeling is rapidly becoming an essential research
technique complementing traditional experimental biological methods. However, lack of …

Experiments in amoebae and neutrophils have shown that local accumulations of
phosphatidylinositol 3, 4, 5-trisphosphate [PI (3, 4, 5) P3] mediate the ability of cells to …

Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase lipid products and the Rho GTPases play a central role in
transmitting information from chemotactic receptors to the effectors of cell polarity, and recent …

The mechanism of eukaryotic chemotaxis remains unclear despite intensive study. The most
frequently described mechanism acts through attractants causing actin polymerization, in …

Cell polarity is a general cellular process that can be seen in various cell types such as
migrating neutrophils and Dictyostelium cells. The Rho small GTP (guanosine 5′-tri …

Chemical reactions make cells work only if the participating chemicals are delivered to
desired locations in a timely and precise fashion. Most research to date has focused on …