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Symbiotic Cell Differentiation and Cooperative Growth in Multicellular Aggregates

Fig 2

Typical behavior of the N-cell model in category (a).

(A) Chemical compositions of N cells surviving at time t = 5×10⁵. The concentration is plotted with a color code, with the vertical axis indicating the cell index m, and the horizontal axis indicating the chemical index i, while the top band designates the composition of an “isolated” cell. Cells differentiate into two types with distinct compositions. (B) The time series of in interacting N cells surviving at time t = 4×10⁴, overlaid for all cells shown as different colors. Each line represents the concentration of the chemical X₁ in a different cell, plotted with different colors over 100 cells. (C) The time series of the number of cell divisions per cell for interacting (red) and isolated (blue) cells. Interacting cells grow faster than isolated cells; i.e., R_μ > 1.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005042.g002