Cells are attracted to certain chemicals and repelled by others. For instance, infection-fighting white blood cells are drawn to chemicals called chemoattractants that are released at the scene of an injury, according to Phys.org. But to learn how cells navigate spaces bigger than their immediate vicinity, scientists put them to the test in tiny mazes loaded up with those chemoattractants.
The University of Glasgow scientists put both amoebas and pancreatic cells through the gauntlet to test — and ultimately confirm — their hypothesis that cells steered themselves in the direction with the greatest concentration of chemoattractants as a proxy for figuring out what direction they came from.
