The problem of colliding networks and its relation to cell fusion and cancer.

ABSTRACT: Cell fusion, a process that merges two or more cells into one, is required for normal development and has been explored as a tool for stem cell therapy. It has also been proposed that cell fusion causes cancer and contributes to its progression. These functions rely on a poorly understood ability of cell fusion to create new cell types. We suggest that this ability can be understood by considering cells as attractor networks whose basic property is to adopt a set of distinct, stable, self-maintaining states called attractors. According to this view, fusion of two cell types is a collision of two networks that have adopted distinct attractors. To learn how these networks reach a consensus, we model cell fusion computationally. To do so, we simulate patterns of gene activities using a formal

SUBMITTER: Koulakov AA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3491708 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature