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Updated: Aug 6, 2026
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Mapping the Emergent Spatial Organization of Mammalian Cells using Micropatterns and Quantitative Imaging
Published on: April 30, 2019
Quantitative guiding of developmental cell fate patterns using a dynamical landscape model
Ismail Hajji1,2, Francis Corson3, Wolfgang Keil1,2
1Laboratoire de Physique des Cellules et Cancers, Institut Curie, CNRS UMR168, Université Paris Science et Lettres, Paris PARIS CEDEX 05 75231, France.
Summary
Scientists used landscape modeling to precisely guide cell fate decisions in developing worms. Short signaling pulses reprogrammed cell development, converting three-way decisions into sequential binary ones.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Biology
- Systems Biology
- Computational Biology
Background:
- Cell fate decisions are driven by complex transcriptional dynamics.
- Landscape modeling successfully predicts terminal cell fates.
- Perturbing multicellular patterning is challenging due to gene circuit complexity.
Purpose of the Study:
- To apply landscape modeling to infer dynamic perturbations in Caenorhabditis elegans vulval fate patterning.
- To investigate the effects of EGF and Notch signaling perturbations on cell fate outcomes.
- To demonstrate quantitative guidance of cell fate acquisition using signaling pulses.
Main Methods:
- Combined a landscape model with in vivo perturbations of EGF and Notch signaling in C. elegans.
- Utilized temperature-sensitive mutant alleles and temperature shifts for temporal control.
- Analyzed underlying cellular landscapes to understand decision structure changes.
Main Results:
- Landscape model accurately predicted nonintuitive fate outcomes from pathway epistasis.
- Short signaling pulses precisely guided the fraction and specific fates of precursor cells.
- Signaling pulses converted the three-way cell fate decision topology into two sequential binary decisions.
Conclusions:
- Landscape models possess significant predictive power for developmental processes.
- Signaling pulses can quantitatively guide cell fate acquisition by redesigning developmental decision structures.
- This approach offers a novel method for controlling cell fate in developmental contexts.
