Drosophila Eye Development

We inferred a multicellular regulatory model, which governs Drosophila eye development, by integrating heterogeneous biological data. The whole model contains about 2000 cells. All cells are mathematically represented by a cellular regulatory model which contains 25 intracellular molecular components (genes/proteins, such as ato, E(Spl), ey, eya, hth, rough, sens, svp, and so on) and five intercellular signalling components (Hh, Dpp, Delta, Sca, EGF). The cellular regulatory model involves 5 intracellular signal transduction pathways and contains 56 intracellular regulation relationships.

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The image below is a snapshot of the Drosophila eye development process simulated by our model

Click here to download the video (Windows avi format).

Each 'o' denotes a cell. Each "*" is an R8 cell. Each "+" is an R2/R5 cell. Each "triangles" is an R3/R4 cell. Each "diamond" is an R1/R6 cell. The model decides a cell to adopt a particular fate (e.g., R8, R2/R5, R3/R4, or R1/R6) if the corresponding fate marker gene is the only fate marker gene that stablizes at the highest level in that cell.

Green: Spi diffusion. Red: ato expression. Blue: sca expression.

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Here is another example.

Click here to download the video (Windows avi format).

Each 'o' denotes a cell. Each "*" is an R8 cell. Each "+" is an R2/R5 cell. Each "triangles" is an R3/R4 cell. Each "diamond" is an R1/R6 cell.

Red: sens diffusion. Green: Erk activation. Blue: ato expression.

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Let me know if you would like to see expression patterns/dynamics of other genes.