Repulsive expansion dynamics in colony growth and gene expression
Abstract
Spatial expansion of a population of cells can arise from growth of microorganisms, plant cells, and mammalian cells. It underlies normal or dysfunctional tissue development, and it can be exploited as the foundation for programming spatial patterns. This expansion is often driven by continuous growth and division of cells within a colony, which in turn pushes the peripheral cells outward. This process generates a repulsion velocity field at each location within the colony. Here we show that this process can be approximated as coarse-grained repulsive-expansion kinetics. This framework enables accurate and efficient simulation of growth and gene expression dynamics in radially symmetric colonies with homogenous z-directional distribution. It is robust even if cells are not spherical and vary in size. The simplicity of the resulting mathematical framework also greatly facilitates generation of mechanistic insights.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Mar 18, 2021
- Source ID
- 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008168
Entities
People
- Andrew E. Blanchard
- John Neu
- Lingchong You
- Lu Ting
- Yangxiaolu Cao
Organizations
- Army Research Office
- David and Lucile Packard Foundation
- National Institutes of Health
- National Science Foundation
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory
- Office of Naval Research