Collective Alignment of Cells in Planar Cell Polarity: Insights from a Spin Model

Abstract: In metazoans, cells collectively polarize and align along the tissue plane. This phenomenon is called Planar cell polarity (PCP). Polarization means asymmetric segregation of molecules and sub-cellular structures within a cell. In PCP, cells collectively align in a particular direction along the tissue plane through identical polarization. PCP in the Drosophila wing requires local cell-cell interactions in the presence of some global cue. We used a lattice-based equilibrium model and investigated the collective alignment of cells through local interactions and a global cue. This system undergoes a percolation transition and belongs to the universality class of 2D random percolation. We show that the local interaction should be beyond a threshold to trigger system-level coordinated polarization of cells. Under this condition, even a weak global cue can align all cells in the correct direction. With strong local interactions, this system is robust against local aberrations in global signaling, and collective alignment of cells is achieved even with a transient global signal.