Measurement of phase synchrony of coupled segmentation clocks

TL;DR

This study investigates how coupled segmentation clock cells synchronize their oscillations through delta protein signaling, revealing a phase transition from desynchronized to synchronized states with amplitude and frequency changes.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of phase synchrony in coupled segmentation clocks and identifies the conditions leading to different synchronization regimes.

Findings

Amplitude increases with delta-notch signaling activation

Oscillation frequency decreases as amplitude increases

Clear phase transition from desynchronized to synchronized behavior

Abstract

The temporal behaviour of segmentation clock oscillations show phase synchrony via mean field like coupling of delta protein restricting to nearest neighbours only, in a configuration of cells arranged in a regular three dimensional array. We found the increase of amplitudes of oscillating dynamical variables of the cells as the activation rate of delta-notch signaling is increased, however, the frequencies of oscillations are decreased correspondingly. Our results show the phase transition from desynchronized to synchronized behaviour by identifying three regimes, namely, desynchronized, transition and synchronized regimes supported by various qualitative and quantitative measurements.