Abstract
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.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 105097 |
Journal | iScience |
Volume | 25 |
Issue number | 10 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Oct 21 2022 |
Funding
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.).
Keywords
- Biological sciences
- Developmental biology
- Mathematical biosciences
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General