Nature Communications (Jan 2020)

Geometric cues stabilise long-axis polarisation of PAR protein patterns in C. elegans

  • Raphaela Geßele,
  • Jacob Halatek,
  • Laeschkir Würthner,
  • Erwin Frey

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-14317-w
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 12

Abstract

Read online

In the C. elegans zygote, (anterior) aPAR and (posterior) pPAR proteins are key to polarity maintenance, what factors determine the selection of the polarity axis remains unclear. Here authors formulate a reaction-diffusion model in realistic cell geometry and find that long-axis polarisation is promoted by cytosolic dephosphorylation at onset and its steady state determined by minimising the length of the aPAR-pPAR interface.