Extraction of biomolecular signals controlling complex behavior of biological cells

Cell deformation and migration are one of the important biological functions related to various biological phenomena. In this study, using the time-series data of cell morphological changes (protrusion and retraction of cell leading edge) and activities of regulatory molecules, we propose a novel method of data analysis for extracting molecular activity patterns corresponding to specific morphological changes based on the reverse correlation analysis. This method was applied to the time-series data of the three representative regulatory molecules measured from cultured cells. We extracted the dynamical molecular activities for four types of the morphological change; constant protrusion and retraction, and transient protrusion and retraction. Although it has been difficult to link cell movement and biochemical findings, we confirmed that our results are consistent with previous findings in the field of biochemistry.