Description of Research Area

A03: Function | Proposed Research Projects (2014-2015)

Molecular Dynamics of Crescent-Shape Determination of Motile Cells
Leader IWADATE, Yoshiaki Department of Functional Molecular Biology, Yamaguchi University URL : http://biophysics.sci.yamaguchi-u.ac.jp/english.html
Research Subject Fish epidermal keratocytes, a kind of motile cells, does not show any particular shape when they float in culture medium. However, just after they adhere to the substratum, their shape becomes crescent-like and they begin to migrate straight in the direction of the arc. The other cell-types such as fibroblasts and Dictyostelium cells continuously change their shape during crawling migration. When the shape of the cells become crescent-like by chance, they also begin to migrate straight in the direction of the arc with keeping the crescent shape. Thus, crescent shape seems to be a general stable one for motile cells. How the crescent shape maintain has been described mathematically based on the graded radial extension (GRE) model. The principal concept of this model is graded expansion rate of leading edge, namely, expansion at the center is faster than that at the sides. In our study, we aim to reveal the molecular dynamics of the graded expansion rate of leading edge in crawling keratocytes and apply this mechanism to the other motile cells.
Research Partner SAKUMURA, Yuichi School of Information Science and Technology, Aichi Prefectural University