Abstract:
We have carried out the first examination of
pathways of cell differentiation in model
genetic networks in which cell types are
assumed to be attractors of the nonlinear
dynamics, and differentiation corresponds to
a transition of the cell to a new basin of
attraction, which may be induced by a signal
or noise perturbation. The associated flow
along a transient to a new attractor
corresponds to a pathway of differentiation.
We have measured a variety of features of
such model pathways of differentiation, most
of which should be observable using gene
array techniques.