Physical limits of flow sensing in the left-right organizer

eLife

Andrej Vilfan¹  Frank Jülicher²  Willy Supatto³  Rita R Ferreira⁴  Julien Vermot⁵ 

[1] Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Illkirch, France;Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, Illkirch, France;Université de Strasbourg, Illkirch, France;Institut de Génétique et de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire, Illkirch, France;J. Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia;

关键词: fluid flow;    motile cilia;    multiscale analysis;    low reynolds number;    patterning;   

DOI  :  10.7554/eLife.25078

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Fluid flows generated by motile cilia are guiding the establishment of the left-right asymmetry of the body in the vertebrate left-right organizer. Competing hypotheses have been proposed: the direction of flow is sensed either through mechanosensation, or via the detection of chemical signals transported in the flow. We investigated the physical limits of flow detection to clarify which mechanisms could be reliably used for symmetry breaking. We integrated parameters describing cilia distribution and orientation obtained in vivo in zebrafish into a multiscale physical study of flow generation and detection. Our results show that the number of immotile cilia is too small to ensure robust left and right determination by mechanosensing, given the large spatial variability of the flow. However, motile cilia could sense their own motion by a yet unknown mechanism. Finally, transport of chemical signals by the flow can provide a simple and reliable mechanism of asymmetry establishment.

【 授权许可】

Unknown