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Chemotactic transport theory for neutrophil leukocytes
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Chemotactic transport theory for neutrophil leukocytes

Gerald Rosen
Journal of theoretical biology, v 59(2), pp 371-380
1976
PMID: 957696

Abstract

The simplest admissible phenomenological transport theory for the chemotactic migration of a population of neutrophil leukocytes is formulated along the lines of the original Keller-Segel model for bacterial chemotaxis, but with appropriate specialization of the motility and chemotactic flux coefficient to reflect their dependence on the local cytotaxin (chemoattractant) concentration, as observed experimentally by Wilkinson and other workers. By supplementing deductions from the governing transport equation with inferences from measurements and then reasoning both forwards and backwards, the functional forms of the motility and chemotactic flux coefficient can be established for any prescribed cytotaxin. This analysis is performed here with numerical details for casein, a cytotaxin which gives rise to a motility function with an increasing-then-decreasing form of dependence on the concentration and a chemotactic flux coefficient that is essentially constant with variations in the concentration. Three dimensionless numbers are associated with the chemotactic response of neutrophil leukocytes to casein.

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