CompuCell 3DAbstract.
- Development is the powerful process involving a genome in the transformation from one egg cell to a multicellular or- ganism with many cell types. The dividing cells manage to organize and assign themselves special, differentiated roles in a reliable manner, creating a spatio-temporal pattern and division of labor. This despite the fact that little positional information may be available to them initially to guide this patterning. Inspired by a model of developmental biologist L. Wolpert, we simulate this situation in an evolutionary set- ting where individuals have to grow into “French flag” pat- terns. The cells in our model exist in a 2-layer Potts model physical environment. Controlled by continuous genetic reg- ulatory networks, identical for all cells of one individual, the cells can individually differ in parameters including target volume, shape, orientation, and diffusion. Intercellular com- munication is possible via secretion and sensing of diffusing morphogens. Evolved individuals growing from a single cell can develop the French flag pattern by setting up and main- taining asymmetric morphogen gradients – a behavior pre- dicted by several theoretical models.
Artificial Life XI: Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems, pp. 321–328. MIT Press, Cambridge (2008)
Full Citation
Knabe, J.F., Nehaniv, C.L., Schilstra, M.J.: Evolution and morphogenesis of differentiated multicellular organisms: autonomously generated diffusion gradients for positional information. Artificial Life XI: Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems, pp. 321–328. MIT Press, Cambridge (2008)