The role of intracellular interactions in the collective polarization of tissues and its interplay with cellular geometry

PLoS Comput Biol. 2019 Nov 26;15(11):e1007454. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007454. eCollection 2019 Nov.

Abstract

Planar cell polarity (PCP), the long-range in-plane polarization of epithelial tissues, provides directional information that guides a multitude of developmental processes at cellular and tissue levels. While it is manifest that cells utilize both intracellular and intercellular interactions, the coupling between the two modules, essential to the coordination of collective polarization, remains an active area of investigation. We propose a generalized reaction-diffusion model to study the role of intracellular interactions in the emergence of long-range polarization, and show that the nonlocality of cytoplasmic interactions, i.e. coupling of membrane proteins localized on different cell-cell junctions, is of vital importance to the faithful detection of weak directional signals, and becomes increasingly more crucial to the stability of polarization against the deleterious effects of large geometric irregularities. We demonstrate that nonlocal interactions are necessary for geometric information to become accessible to the PCP components. The prediction of the model regarding polarization in elongated tissues, is shown to be in agreement with experimental observations, where the polarity emerges perpendicular to the axis of elongation. Core PCP is adopted as a model pathway, in term of which we interpret the model parameters. To this end, we introduce three distinct classes of mutations, (I) in membrane proteins, (II) in cytoplasmic proteins, and (III) local enhancement of geometric disorder. Comparing the in silico and in vivo phenotypes, we show that our model successfully recapitulates the salient phenotypic features of these mutations. Exploring the parameter space helps us shed light on the role of cytoplasmic proteins in cell-cell communications, and make falsifiable predictions regarding the cooperation of cytoplasmic and membrane proteins in the establishment of long-range polarization.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Body Patterning / physiology*
  • Cell Communication
  • Cell Polarity / physiology*
  • Computational Biology / methods*
  • Cytoplasm / metabolism
  • Drosophila Proteins / metabolism
  • Drosophila melanogaster / metabolism
  • Membrane Proteins / metabolism
  • Models, Biological
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Signal Transduction

Substances

  • Drosophila Proteins
  • Membrane Proteins

Grants and funding

SS was supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through Grant GBMF2919.01 (https://www.moore.org/). MM would like to thank the Simons Foundation MMLS program for financial support (https://www.simonsfoundation.org/mathematical-modeling-living-systems/). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.