Evolution of selfish multicellularity: collective organisation of individual spatio-temporal regulatory strategies.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The unicellular ancestors of modern-day multicellular organisms were remarkably complex. They had an extensive set of regulatory and signalling genes, an intricate life cycle and could change their behaviour in response to environmental changes. At the transition to multicellularity, some of these behaviours were co-opted to organise the development of the nascent multicellular organism. Here, we focus on the transition to multicellularity before the evolution of stable cell differentiation, to reveal how the emergence of clusters affects the evolution of cell behaviour.

Results

We construct a computational model of a population of cells that can evolve the regulation of their behavioural state - either division or migration - and study both a unicellular and a mu

SUBMITTER: Vroomans RMA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10357660 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature