Dynamical strategies for obstacle avoidance during Dictyostelium discoideum aggregation: a Multi-agent system model

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Autori principali: Proverbio, Daniele, Maggiora, Marco
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2019
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author Proverbio, Daniele
Maggiora, Marco
author_facet Proverbio, Daniele
Maggiora, Marco
contents Chemotaxis, the movement of an organism in response to chemical stimuli, is a typical feature of many microbiological systems. In particular, the social amoeba \textit{Disctyostelium discoideum} is widely used as a model organism, but it is not still clear how it behaves in heterogeneous environments. A few models focusing on mechanical features have already addressed the question; however, we suggest that phenomenological models focusing on the population dynamics may provide new meaningful data. Consequently, by means of a specific Multi-agent system model, we study the dynamical features emerging from complex social interactions among individuals belonging to amoeba colonies.\\ After defining an appropriate metric to quantitatively estimate the gathering process, we find that: a) obstacles play the role of local topological perturbation, as they alter the flux of chemical signals; b) physical obstacles (blocking the cellular motion and the chemical flux) and purely chemical obstacles (only interfering with chemical flux) elicit similar dynamical behaviors; c) a minimal program for robustly gathering simulated cells does not involve mechanisms for obstacle sensing and avoidance; d) fluctuations of the dynamics concur in preventing multiple stable clusters. Comparing those findings with previous results, we speculate about the fact that chemotactic cells can avoid obstacles by simply following the altered chemical gradient. Social interactions are sufficient to guarantee the aggregation of the whole colony past numerous obstacles.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_1905_05030
institution arXiv
publishDate 2019
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Dynamical strategies for obstacle avoidance during Dictyostelium discoideum aggregation: a Multi-agent system model
Proverbio, Daniele
Maggiora, Marco
Cell Behavior
Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems
Chemotaxis, the movement of an organism in response to chemical stimuli, is a typical feature of many microbiological systems. In particular, the social amoeba \textit{Disctyostelium discoideum} is widely used as a model organism, but it is not still clear how it behaves in heterogeneous environments. A few models focusing on mechanical features have already addressed the question; however, we suggest that phenomenological models focusing on the population dynamics may provide new meaningful data. Consequently, by means of a specific Multi-agent system model, we study the dynamical features emerging from complex social interactions among individuals belonging to amoeba colonies.\\ After defining an appropriate metric to quantitatively estimate the gathering process, we find that: a) obstacles play the role of local topological perturbation, as they alter the flux of chemical signals; b) physical obstacles (blocking the cellular motion and the chemical flux) and purely chemical obstacles (only interfering with chemical flux) elicit similar dynamical behaviors; c) a minimal program for robustly gathering simulated cells does not involve mechanisms for obstacle sensing and avoidance; d) fluctuations of the dynamics concur in preventing multiple stable clusters. Comparing those findings with previous results, we speculate about the fact that chemotactic cells can avoid obstacles by simply following the altered chemical gradient. Social interactions are sufficient to guarantee the aggregation of the whole colony past numerous obstacles.
title Dynamical strategies for obstacle avoidance during Dictyostelium discoideum aggregation: a Multi-agent system model
topic Cell Behavior
Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems
url https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.05030