TY - JOUR
T1 - Single-cell Senseless protein analysis reveals metastable states during the transition to a sensory organ fate
AU - Giri, Ritika
AU - Brady, Shannon
AU - Papadopoulos, Dimitrios K.
AU - Carthew, Richard W.
N1 - Funding Information:
Fly stocks from Hugo Bellen, Fen Biao Gao, and the Bloomington Drosophila Stock Center are gratefully appreciated. Antibodies were gifts from Hugo Bellen and purchases from the Developmental Studies Hybridoma Bank. We thank Jessica Hornick and the Biological Imaging Facility for help with imaging. Financial support was provided from the Northwestern Data Science Initiative (R.G.), Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center (R.G.), NIH ( R35GM118144 , R.W.C.), NSF ( 1764421 , R.W.C.), and the Simons Foundation ( 597491 , R.W.C.).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s)
PY - 2022/10/21
Y1 - 2022/10/21
N2 - Cell fate decisions can be envisioned as bifurcating dynamical systems, and the decision that Drosophila cells make during sensory organ differentiation has been described as such. We extended these studies by focusing on the Senseless protein which orchestrates sensory cell fate transitions. Wing cells contain intermediate Senseless numbers before their fate transition, after which they express much greater numbers of Senseless molecules as they differentiate. However, the dynamics are inconsistent with it being a simple bistable system. Cells with intermediate Senseless are best modeled as residing in four discrete states, each with a distinct protein number and occupying a specific region of the tissue. Although the states are stable over time, the number of molecules in each state vary with time. The fold change in molecule number between adjacent states is invariant and robust to absolute protein number variation. Thus, cells transitioning to sensory fates exhibit metastability with relativistic properties.
AB - Cell fate decisions can be envisioned as bifurcating dynamical systems, and the decision that Drosophila cells make during sensory organ differentiation has been described as such. We extended these studies by focusing on the Senseless protein which orchestrates sensory cell fate transitions. Wing cells contain intermediate Senseless numbers before their fate transition, after which they express much greater numbers of Senseless molecules as they differentiate. However, the dynamics are inconsistent with it being a simple bistable system. Cells with intermediate Senseless are best modeled as residing in four discrete states, each with a distinct protein number and occupying a specific region of the tissue. Although the states are stable over time, the number of molecules in each state vary with time. The fold change in molecule number between adjacent states is invariant and robust to absolute protein number variation. Thus, cells transitioning to sensory fates exhibit metastability with relativistic properties.
KW - Biological sciences
KW - Developmental biology
KW - Mathematical biosciences
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U2 - 10.1016/j.isci.2022.105097
DO - 10.1016/j.isci.2022.105097
M3 - Article
C2 - 36157584
AN - SCOPUS:85138177651
SN - 2589-0042
VL - 25
JO - iScience
JF - iScience
IS - 10
M1 - 105097
ER -