Transition states and cell fate decisions in epigenetic landscapes.
Waddington's epigenetic landscape is an abstract metaphor frequently used to represent the relationship between gene activity and cell fates during development. Over the past few years, it has become a useful framework for interpreting results from single-cell transcriptomics experiments. It has led to the proposal that, during fate transitions, cells experience smooth, continuous progressions of global transcriptional activity, which can be captured by (pseudo)temporal dynamics. Here, focusing strictly on the fate decision events, we suggest an alternative view: that fate transitions occur in a discontinuous, stochastic manner whereby signals modulate the probability of the transition events.
Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EH, UK.
Naomi
N
Moris
Department of Haematology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 0PT, UK.
Cristina
C
Pina
Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EH, UK.
Alfonso Martinez
AM
Arias
D000818:Animals; D002454:Cell Differentiation / Q000235:genetics*; D019070:Cell Lineage / Q000235:genetics*; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods*; D044127:Epigenesis, Genetic / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D008957:Models, Genetic; D013269:Stochastic Processes