The role of receptor occupancy noise in eukaryotic chemotaxis

Abstract

Chemotacting eukaryotic cells are able to translate a gradient of occupied receptors into cell motion. For small concentrations and shallow gradients, fluctuations in the number of occupied receptors can become important. Here, we present an effective way to numerically simulate the correlations of these fluctuations. Furthermore, we apply our previously developed formalism ([10])to a simple version of the local excitation, global inhibition model. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.