Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 115, Issue 16, Pages 4288-4293Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1706920115
Keywords
biofilm expansion; phenotypic differentiation; metabolic codependence; oscillations; reaction-diffusion system
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Funding
- National Science Foundation [PHY-1427654, MCB-1241332]
- National Cancer Institute of the National Institute of Health [P30CA034196]
- Div Of Molecular and Cellular Bioscience
- Direct For Biological Sciences [1241332] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Cell fate determination is typically regulated by biological networks, yet increasing evidences suggest that cell-cell communication and environmental stresses play crucial roles in the behavior of a cell population. A recent microfluidic experiment showed that the metabolic codependence of two cell populations generates a collective oscillatory dynamic during the expansion of a Bacillus subtilis biofilm. We develop a modeling framework for the spatio-temporal dynamics of the associated metabolic circuit for cells in a colony. We elucidate the role of metabolite diffusion and the need of two distinct cell populations to observe oscillations. Uniquely, this description captures the onset and thereafter stable oscillatory dynamics during expansion and predicts the existence of damping oscillations under various environmental conditions. This modeling scheme provides insights to understand how cells integrate the information from external signaling and cell-cell communication to determine the optimal survival strategy and/or maximize cell fitness in a multicellular system.
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