Clustering versus sorting: a mass-conserving reaction-diffusion model of planar polarity puncta

Abstract

Planar cell polarity is preceded by the clustering of polarity proteins into discrete, low-turnover membrane subdomains (puncta), yet the minimal interactions that nucleate puncta, set their number, and segregate opposite orientations remain unclear. We address these questions with a mass-conserving reaction-diffusion model in which two diffusible monomers bind reversibly across a cell-cell junction into trans-complexes of two orientations, with feedback entering only through concentration-dependent rates. Above a critical density, the uniform state undergoes a long-wavelength mass-redistribution instability rather than a finite-wavelength Turing bifurcation. The form of the feedback then selects between two morphologies: broad mesas fixed by a Maxwell construction under saturating feedback, and narrow mass-limited spikes under unbounded feedback. For spikes we obtain closed-form expressions exhibiting a clean separation of amplitude (mass and feedback), width (the complex diffusion length), and spacing (the monomer screening length). Within a fast-monomer reduction we prove, for any number and arrangement of puncta, that like-oriented arrays coarsen, so multiplicity is metastable and kinetically determined. The second monomer reservoir introduces a second screening length that rate-limits competition by the harmonic mean of the monomer diffusivities, and the spectrum of a punctum remains free of oscillatory ("blinking") instabilities throughout. Finally, sign-definite cross-modulation of turnover converts clustering into orientation sorting - the mutual exclusion of orientations along a single contact: mass redistribution sets puncta number, and the sign of the cross-coupling determines whether orientations segregate. Puncta number and orientation sorting are thus governed by mathematically separable ingredients.