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Modular Design of Artificial Tissue Homeostasis: Robust Control through Synthetic Cellular Heterogeneity

Figure 1

Overview of system design.

(A) The general tissue homeostasis design. Proliferation of stem cells (blue) is regulated by their population size through negative feedback (dashed blue line). Sequential differentiation into endodermic, pancreatic, and finally -cells (red) occurs when the stem cell population has sufficient size, and is governed through negative feedback from differentiated cells (dashed red line). (B) Design workflow. Starting with a high-level objective, iterative design proceeds through a top-down decomposition into modules and then basic reactions of the system, followed by analysis and redesign (left). The table columns (right) show the four iterations of system designs presented in this work. Table rows describe the top-down decomposition for each system, and correspond to the workflow at left.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002579.g001