Stochastic threshold in cell size control

Liang Luo; Yang Bai; Xiongfei Fu

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arXiv · 2203.02987

Stochastic threshold in cell size control

Liang Luo·Yang Bai·Xiongfei Fu

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Abstract

Classic models of cell size control consider cells divide while reaching a threshold, e.g. size, age, or size extension. The molecular basis of the threshold involves multiple layers of regulation as well as gene noises. In this work, we study cell cycle as first-passage problem with stochastic threshold and discover such stochasticity affects the inter-division statistics, which bewilders the criteria to distinguish the types of size control models. The analytic results show the autocorrelation in the threshold can drive a sizer model to the adder-like and even timer-like inter-division statistics, which is supported by simulations. Following the picture that the autocorrelation in the threshold can propagate to the inter-division statistics, we further show that the adder model can be driven to the timer-like one by positive autocorrelated threshold, and even to the sizer-like one when the threshold is negatively autocorrelated. This work highlights the importance to examine gene noise in size control.

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BibTeX RIS

Liang Luo, Yang Bai, Xiongfei Fu. 2022-03-06. Stochastic threshold in cell size control. https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.02987

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