< Back to Article
Model of Fission Yeast Cell Shape Driven by Membrane-Bound Growth Factors and the Cytoskeleton
Figure 3
Model for remodeling induced by growth factor yields several predictions.
A. For a Gaussian growth-factor signal, cell diameter is proportional to signal width as described in the main text. B. Effect of changing Poisson's ratio of material inserted on the slope in A. C. Using for input an exponential power distribution shows that a pointier or blunter signal gives a pointier or blunter cell. Excess kurtosis measures the peakedness of the distribution. Parameters q and 
are found numerically to match values of excess kurtosis while keeping the standard deviation constant. Plot shows ratio of tip radius of curvature to cell radius. We note that for each value of excess kurtosis, the dependence of diameter on the standard deviation of the signal is described by a different value of α (not shown). D. Length of the region of a transition between two widths after an instantaneous change in the width σΛ of a Gaussian growth signal by Δσ. Illustrative simulated cell outline showing the cell border (blue), region of a transition with length ΔL, and cell diameters winit and wfinal of two regions of the growing tip. The size of the transition region, measured as the length of the region spanning the middle two quartiles in width, is proportional to cell width and remains nearly constant as Δσ increases or decreases.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003287.g003