Entrainment and Self-organization in a population of Amoeba

摘要

We review recent experimental observations of entrainment dynamics and wave pattern selsction in coherent chemical signling activity i na homogeneous poppulation of idctyostelium discoideum amoebase. THe chemical signalig in the population self-organizes to macroscopic coherent waves. The morphology of the wve state is governed by pacemakers and spiral ocres, which appera naturally in the noisy system. As the system evolvestoward a time-asymptotic state, they ocmpete each other coarsening the global signaling morphology. At high pupulaton densities the pacemakers seen at early times nucleate and are apparently entrained by aspiral waves, whereas at lwo densities no complete spirals appear and periodic concnetric waves dominate spirals. The suriviving sources, wheterer it is a spiral core or pacemaker, serve as aggregation centers for subsequent cell chemotaxis and aggregationl The final morphology of the signaling pattern thus has a role of prepattern for the subseunt developemental process. possible mechanisms for these observatons arealso idscussed.