Coordinating cell polarization and morphogenesis through mechanical feedback
Fig 5
Coordination of cell polarization and mating projection growth via mechanical feedback.
A, Unpolarized, spherical budding yeast cells can spontaneously break the symmetry and establish a polarization cap that is randomly located on the cell’s surface (all locations on the cell surface are equally probable) or even create multiple polarization caps. B, In the absence of any feedback between cell shape/mechanics and cell polarity, the polarity cap lacks positional information and cannot be maintained at the tip. In the presence of the mechanical feedback provided by the CWI pathway (see details of the feedback events in the box), the polarization cap is maintained at the tip of the growing mating projection. In this case, the polarization cap receives positional information through the mechanical feedback in the CWI pathway, which differentiates different positions on the cell surface associated with different levels of cell wall expansion.