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Chemotaxis in heterogeneous environments: A multi-agent model of decentralized gathering past obstacles.
Proverbio, Daniele.
Afiliação
  • Proverbio D; Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Trento, 9 via Sommarive, 38123 Trento, Italy. Electronic address: daniele.proverbio@unitn.it.
J Theor Biol ; 586: 111820, 2024 06 07.
Article em En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38604596
ABSTRACT
Chemotaxis, cell migration in response to chemical gradients, is known to promote self-organization of microbiological populations. However, the modeling of chemotaxis in heterogeneous environments is still limited. This study analyzes a decentralized gathering process in environments with physical as well as chemical barriers, using a multi-agent model for Disctyostelium discoideum colonies. Employing a topology-independent metric to quantify the system evolution, we study dynamical features emerging from complex social interactions. The results show that obstacles may hamper the gathering process by altering the flux of chemical signals among amoebas, acting as local topological perturbations. We also find that a minimal set of agent's rules for robust gathering does not require explicit mechanisms for obstacle sensing and avoidance; moreover, random cell movements concur in preventing multiple stable clusters and improve the gathering efficacy. Hence, we speculate that chemotactic cells can avoid obstacles without needing specialized mechanisms tradeoffs of social interactions and individual fluctuations are sufficient to guarantee the aggregation of the whole colony past numerous obstacles.
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Texto completo: 1 Coleções: 01-internacional Base de dados: MEDLINE Assunto principal: Quimiotaxia Idioma: En Revista: J Theor Biol Ano de publicação: 2024 Tipo de documento: Article

Texto completo: 1 Coleções: 01-internacional Base de dados: MEDLINE Assunto principal: Quimiotaxia Idioma: En Revista: J Theor Biol Ano de publicação: 2024 Tipo de documento: Article
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