Aging and immortality in a cell proliferation model

被引：18

作者：

Antal, T.

Blagoev, K. B.

Trugman, S. A.

Redner, S.

机构：

[1] Boston Univ, Dept Phys, Ctr Polymer Studies, Boston, MA 02215 USA

[2] Harvard Univ, Program Evolutionary Dynam, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA

[3] Los Alamos Natl Lab, Div Theory, Los Alamos, NM 87545 USA

来源：

JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL BIOLOGY | 2007年 / 248卷 / 03期

关键词：

cell division; telomere dynamics; senescence;

D O I：

10.1016/j.jtbi.2007.06.009

中图分类号：

Q [生物科学];

学科分类号：

07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;

摘要：

We investigate a model of cell division in which the length of telomeres within a cell regulates its proliferative potential. At each division, telomeres undergo a systematic length decrease as well as a superimposed fluctuation due to exchange of telomere DNA between the two daughter cells. A cell becomes senescent when one or more of its telomeres become shorter than a critical length. We map this telomere dynamics onto a biased branching-diffusion process with an absorbing boundary condition whenever any telomere reaches the critical length. Using first-passage ideas, we find a phase transition between finite lifetime and immortality (infinite proliferation) of the cell population as a function of the influence of telomere shortening, fluctuations, and cell division. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

引用

页码：411 / 417

页数：7

共 29 条

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