Dynamics of coupled-cell systems

Cells interact/communicate among themselves to form structures that perform specialised functions. Here, we review the different types of multicellular organisation observed in living systems whose constituent cells exhibit collective behaviour that may or may not be identical to the single cell dynamics. We present a simple one-dimensional lattice model of a ring of cells, as observed in real tissues, where each cell incorporates a model biochemical reaction having realistic regulatory processes. We study the dynamics exhibited by this coupled-cell system when the constituent pathway in the cells is at different dynamic regimes, or cells have heterogeneous dynamics. Our results show that the synchronised dynamical behaviour of the coupled-cell system can be both similar or different than its constituent cells depending on their intrinsic dynamics. The collective behaviour is robust even when the constituent single cell dynamics is unpredictable under noise.