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Aging and Immortality in a Cell Proliferation Model

T. Antal·K. B. Blagoev·S. A. Trugman·S. Redner
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Abstract

We investigate a model of cell division in which the length of telomeres within the cell regulate their proliferative potential. At each cell division the ends of linear chromosomes change and a cell becomes senescent when one or more of its telomeres become shorter than a critical length. In addition to this systematic shortening, exchange of telomere DNA between the two daughter cells can occur at each cell division. We map this telomere dynamics onto a biased branching diffusion process with an absorbing boundary condition whenever any telomere reaches the critical length. As the relative effects of telomere shortening and cell division are varied, there is a phase transition between finite lifetime and infinite proliferation of the cell population. Using simple first-passage ideas, we quantify the nature of this transition.

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T. Antal, K. B. Blagoev, S. A. Trugman, S. Redner. 2008-04-23. Aging and Immortality in a Cell Proliferation Model. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtbi.2007.06.009

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