Voter model emergence in stem cell niche homeostasis

Abstract

Recent studies suggest that homeostasis could be maintained in stem cell niches by collective cell dynamics rather than by asymmetric cell division. Here we study the collective cell dynamics that lead to an homeostasis maintenance in stem cell niches, the well-known critical birth-death model (CBD) and the voter model (VM), as well as a feedback model in which cell fate (proliferation or differentiation) is determined stochastically by local density. For the feedback case, the system is simulated with three cell motion dynamics: non-interacting, growth-migrationand growth-adhesion. We find that for all motion dynamics the system starts to evolve as the CBD whereas VM emerges at long times and length scales for short-ranged dynamics. Long-ranged dynamics do not exhibit VM emergence