Nieto, Cesar (University of Delaware), Rezaee, Sayeh (University of Delaware), Vargas-Garcia, Cesar (Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria - Agrosavia), Singh, Abhyudai (University of Delaware)

Joint Distribution Dynamics of Cell Cycle Variables in Exponentially-Growing Cells with Stochastic Division

Scheduled for presentation during the Regular Session "Genetic and evolutionary computation" (WeAD), Wednesday, June 11, 2025, 10:30−10:50, Room C

33rd Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation, June 10-13, 2025, Tangier, Morocco

This information is tentative and subject to change. Compiled on May 9, 2025

Abstract

A fundamental property of all living cells is their ability to regulate their size while proliferating. Cell proliferation involves a mother cell, growing over time and dividing into daughter cells at an appropriate moment. Cell size, quantified using metrics such as length in rod-shaped bacteria or mass in human cells, remains under robust control across diverse cell types. Fluctuations in size arising from errors in growth and division cycles can be used to characterize the underlying mechanisms of size control and proliferation. In this work, we develop a stochastic dynamical model to capture cell-to-cell size fluctuations within a homogeneous population of proliferating cells. Size control is implemented by modeling division as a stochastic process with a continuous rate that depends nonlinearly on cell size. This framework leads to a system of partial differential equations (PDEs) that describe the time evolution of the joint distribution of key variables, including cell size, cell cycle timer, and added size since birth. By numerically solving these PDEs, we provide insights into the statistical moments of cell size (mean, coefficient of variation, and skewness), which display oscillatory dynamics over time. With access to quantitative single-cell size data, the computational framework developed here offers a powerful tool to infer and elucidate size control mechanisms across diverse cell types.