Automaton Models of Developmental Processes

Abstract

In the classical embryology, cell lineage was a descriptive tool for cleaving eggs. Recently a complete lineage has been established for early and post-embryonic development of the nematode C. elegans. Considering the constancy of lineage from animal to animal, we here propose the hypothesis that the cellular division time and interaction are determined by the division history of each cell. With this hypothesis, we discuss theoretically the cell proliferation process and propose an automaton model of the developmental process, which is idealized as a series of abstract directed labelled graphs.