Fig. 2: Homogeneous mechanical environment displays neutral drift dynamics.
From: Mechanical control of cell fate decisions in the skin epidermis
Clonal growth dynamics of a representative clone is depicted in 3D (a) and in the 2D basal plane (b). Cells that belong to the same clone are tagged in red. The same clone is shown in the 2D basal cross-section (b), where in addition to the initial and final frames, one-forth, middle, and three-fourth frames are also shown. c The average number of basal cells is plotted with respect to time (t) in units of turnover/division timescale τD. When averaged over all the clones, the size remains almost constant at unity-- only to be expected as the total number of cells is conserved. Averaging over the surviving clones, it shows an initial transience, followed by linear growth-- as seen in neutral-drift processes. d The ratio of surviving clones decreases inversely with time, in line with the above quantification. Parameter set: total number of cells = 192, s0 = 5.3, T = 1.0 and zero noise.
