Identifying How Single Cells Modulate Population-Wide Pattern Formation

One of the key outstanding challenges in understanding multicellular pattern formation is identifying what single cells tune within themselves to change population-wide patterns. A major driver of multicellular patterns is oscillations in single-cell signaling networks, but it is unknown what features single cells naturally modulate in these oscillations to change global patterns. An ideal system for addressing this challenge exists in the social amoeba, Dictyostelium discoideum. Dictyostelium uses travelling waves of chemoattractant molecules between cells to drive aggregation into a multicellular state when starving. These waves originate within single cells that release this molecule to the environment, and the single-cell signaling network phenomena that drive the creation of these waves are well-characterized. However, it is still unknown what parameters a single cell naturally controls to change the observed population pattern. Using new experimental data in conjunction with an existing phenomenological model, I explore what parameters single cells can modulate to control signaling oscillations and pattern formation.