2015/02/02

Power law relationship between cell cycle duration and cell volume in the early embryonic development of Caenorhabditis elegans

多細胞構築研究室・澤研究室

Power law relationship between cell cycle duration and cell volume in the early embryonic development of Caenorhabditis elegans

Yukinobu Arata, Hiroaki Takagi, Yasushi Sako, and Hitoshi Sawa
Frontiers in Physiology, 2015 Jan 28;5:529. DOI: 10.3389/fphys.2014.00529

Cell cycle is regulated in coordination with cell size. Yoshio Masui at Toronto University reported that the cell cycle duration is inversely proportional to the cell radius squared after the MBT in Xenopus embryo. They proposed that cell surface area is a candidate to determine cell cycle duration. However, it remains unknown whether this “second power law” is conserved in other animal embryos. Here, we found that the relationship between cell cycle duration and cell size in Caenorhabditis elegans embryos exhibited a power law distribution. The powers of the time-size relationship could be grouped into at least three classes according to C. elegans founder cell lineages. Any of the values was less than that in Xenopus embryos. Interestingly, we found that the relationship between cell and nuclear volumes exhibited a power law. Supposing interactions between nuclease and cytoplasm, we considered the volume ratio between nucleus and cell. The value of power in the volume ratio was almost identical to that of the time-size relationship in highly-size correlated lineages. We propose a new model that cell cycle duration in C. elegans embryos is determined by a geometric constraint between intercellular structures such as nucleus and cytoplasm. It remains possible that cell cycle durations in other animal embryos are determined by the same constraint.

Figure1

Cell cycle duration and cell volume in the AB lineage exhibited a linear relationship in a double logarithmic plot (power law).


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