On the role of vesicle transport in neurite growth: Modelling and experiments

Math Biosci. 2021 Jun 1:108632. doi: 10.1016/j.mbs.2021.108632. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTThe processes that determine the establishment of the complex morphology of neurons during development are still poorly understood. Here, we focus on the question how a difference in the length of neurites affects vesicle transport. We performed live imaging experiments and present a lattice-based model to gain a deeper theoretical understanding of intracellular transport in neurons. After a motivation and appropriate scaling of the model we present numerical simulations showing that initial differences in neurite length result in phenomena of biological relevance, i.e. a positive feedback that enhances transport into the longer neurite and oscillation of vesicles concentrations that can be interpreted as cycles of extension and retraction observed in experiments. Thus, our model is a first step towards a better understanding of the interplay between the transport of vesicles and the spatial organization of cells.PMID:34087317 | DOI:10.1016/j.mbs.2021.108632

Source: Mathematical Biosciences - June 4, 2021 Category: Statistics Authors: Ina Humpert Danila Di Meo Andreas W P üschel Jan-Frederik Pietschmann Source Type: research