Run-and-Tumble Dynamics and Mechanotaxis Discovered in Microglial Migration

  • Research (Wash D C). 2023:6:0063. doi: 10.34133/research.0063.
Yiyu Zhang  1  2 ,  Da Wei  1 ,  Xiaochen Wang  1  2  3 ,  Boyi Wang  1  2 ,  Ming Li  1  4 ,  Haiping Fang  3  5 ,  Yi Peng  1  2 ,  Qihui Fan  1 ,  Fangfu Ye  1  2  3  6
Affiliations
  • 1. Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
  • 2. School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
  • 3. Wenzhou Institute, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wenzhou, Zhejiang 325000, China.
  • 4. Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Dongguan, Guangdong 523808, China.
  • 5. School of Science, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China.
  • 6. Oujiang Laboratory (Zhejiang Lab for Regenerative Medicine, Vision and Brain Health), Wenzhou, Zhejiang 325000, China.
PMID: 36939442 DOI: 10.34133/research.0063
Abstract

Microglia are resident macrophage cells in the central nervous system that search for pathogens or abnormal neural activities and migrate to resolve the issues. The effective search and targeted motion of macrophages mean dearly to maintaining a healthy brain, yet little is known about their migration dynamics. In this work, we study microglial motion with and without the presence of external mechanostimuli. We discover that the cells are promptly attracted by the applied forces (i.e., mechanotaxis), which is a tactic behavior as yet unconfirmed in microglia. Meanwhile, in both the explorative and the targeted migration, microglia display dynamics that is strikingly analogous to Bacterial run-and-tumble motion. A closer examination reveals that microglial run-and-tumble is more sophisticated, e.g., they display a short-term memory when tumbling and rely on active steering during runs to achieve mechanotaxis, probably via the responses of mechanosensitive ion channels. These differences reflect the sharp contrast between microglia and bacteria cells (eukaryotes vs. prokaryotes) and their environments (compact tissue vs. fluid). Further analyses suggest that the reported migration dynamics has an optimal search efficiency and is shared among a subset of immune cells (human monocyte and macrophage). This work reveals a fruitful analogy between the locomotion of 2 remote systems and provides a framework for studying immune cells exploring complex environments.

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