上皮組織細胞族群分布的統計物理

Recent advances in experimental techniques made it possible for one to markdifferent stem cells and trace the offspring of each stem cell. Analyses of the cellclone statistics for various tissues revealed very interesting statistical features.Here, a particle-based computational model and a continuum field-theoreticalmodel are proposed to study this interesting subject.In our particle-based computational model, each cell in the epithelium isrepresented by a point. Cell division, cell growth, the probability that a cell entersmitosis, the chemical signal between cells that triggers collective mitosis, and thecoupling of the epithelium and the underlying tissue are included. The simulationbegins with a few ancestor cells, and the distribution of the offspring of theancestors in the final state can be obtained.In the continuum field-theoretical model, the tissue is modeled as a growingelastic sheet, tissue growth is describedby a time-dependent dilation tensor. The evolution of the cell clones is describedby a generalized continuity equationfor the density of cell clones in a given region at a given time, an extension of thewell-known phase-ordering kineticmodel equation.The result of our study will help us to understand the dominant cellularmechanism that regulates the growth of the tissue, and the origin of theinteresting statistical features observed in the experiments. It also helps us tocompare our proposed model with existing universality classes of somenonequilibrium statistical mechanical models.