Eur. Phys. J. B 75, 365-372 (2010)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2010-00129-y

Collective dynamics of genetic oscillators with cell-to-cell communication: a study case of signal integration

¹ School of Mathematics and Computational Science, Sun Yat-Sen University, 510275, Guangzhou, P.R. China
² School of Mathematics and Information Science, Jiangxi Normal University, 330022, Nanchang, P.R. China

Corresponding author: ^a mcszhtsh@mail.sysu.edu.cn

Received: 16 September 2009
Revised: 12 November 2009
Published online: 16 April 2010

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of integration of intracellular and extracellular signals on collective dynamics based on a multicellular system with cell-to-cell communication. Using a mathematical model of genetic repressilators coupled to quorum sensing, we show that the changes in parameters of a certain kind of cis-regulatory input function that quantifies the signal integration can lead to the change of coupling type from phase-attractive to phase-repulsive coupling or vice versa. Consequently, the multicellular system can exhibit, in both coupling cases, different collective behaviors in terms of synchronization and clustering. We give a general method of determining coupling type, elucidate the mechanism of generating these phenomena and present a criterion for stability of cluster states, mainly by analyzing phase interaction functions.