Print Email Facebook Twitter On cooperativity in cellular habitats, with quantitative experiments and modelling Title On cooperativity in cellular habitats, with quantitative experiments and modelling Author Daneshpour Aryadi, H. (TU Delft BN/Greg Bokinsky Lab) Contributor Youk, H.O. (promotor) Blanter, Y.M. (promotor) Bokinsky, G.E. (copromotor) Degree granting institution Delft University of Technology Date 2021-10-29 Abstract Tales of a Fountain of Youth and the invention of medicine illustrate our age-long obsession with two themes: life and death. What it takes to stay alive, and not to be dead, is a basic question in science that is easy to state, and yet difficult to address at a profound level. One striking feature of many living organisms is the ability of individuals to behave in unison by communicating with each other. At life’s microscopic level, living cells can also send and receive chemical signals to communicate with each other in their habitat but for a population of many thousands of cells it remains enigmatic who is communicating with whom, what are the signals, and how the signals work over space and time. We used quantitative experiments and mathematical modelling to systematically explore how mouse Embryonic Stem (ES) cells might cooperate by communicating when differentiating into the first two lineages. We discovered that differentiating mouse ES cells scattered across many centimeters on a dish form one macroscopic entity that either survives or dies in unison if and only if its population-density is above a threshold value. This switch-like behavior is determined by cells that secrete and sense FGF4 that diffuses over many millimeters to activate YAP1-induced survival mechanisms. Our work shows that living cells (in vitro) can rely on macroscopic cooperation to stay alive. Subject stem cellscell-cell communicationsystems biologymathematical modellingphase diagramsSignaling pathwaysquorum sensing To reference this document use: https://doi.org/10.4233/uuid:e5a05014-d3b7-4566-8d1b-9faf67fa0260 ISBN 978-90-8593-488-2 Bibliographical note Casimir PhD Series, Delft-Leiden 2021-22 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type doctoral thesis Rights © 2021 H. Daneshpour Aryadi Files PDF Dissertation_HiradDaneshp ... Aryadi.pdf 29.49 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:e5a05014-d3b7-4566-8d1b-9faf67fa0260/datastream/OBJ/view