Author summary For cells to be capable of performing essential activities as collectives and clusters, they must be capable of communicating with each other efficiently. One way they do this is by releasing nanoparticles, known as exosomes, that transport cargos of signaling molecules. Unlike free molecules secreted directly from the cell, which diffuse continuously and widely, exosomes diffuse slowly, degrade over time, and contain random amounts of cargo. How do cells make reliable decisions from such noisy and intermittent information? In this study, we employed mathematical modeling and computational simulations to explore how a follower cell can faithfully track a leader cell by utilizing exosomes secreted from the latter. We found that, for a follower cell to move more reliably, exosomes ought to be of intermediate size. Too small and they transmit little information. Too large and they are released too infrequently. This balance suggests a general principle by which cells can bundle information in order to communicate effectively.
Model description
To understand how migrating cells can extract directional information from diffusible exosomes, we construct a minimal 2D model in which a “follower” cell tracks a “leader” cell that secretes exosomes (Fig 1a). These exosomes serve … [16503 chars]
Source: PLOS (Public Library of Science) | Published: 2026-01-13T00:00:00Z
Credit: PLOS (Public Library of Science)
