Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
Curr Opin Genet Dev. 2010 Dec;20(6):574-80. doi: 10.1016/j.gde.2010.09.004. Epub 2010 Oct 9.
From flocking birds, to organ generation, to swarming bacterial colonies, biological systems often exhibit collective behaviors. Here, we review recent advances in our understanding of collective dynamics in cell populations. We argue that understanding population-level oscillations requires examining the system under consideration at three different levels of complexity: at the level of isolated cells, homogenous populations, and spatially structured populations. We discuss the experimental and theoretical challenges this poses and highlight how new experimental techniques, when combined with conceptual tools adapted from physics, may help us overcome these challenges.
从成群的鸟类到器官的生成，再到细菌菌落的聚集，生物系统常常表现出集体行为。在这里，我们回顾了最近在理解细胞群体的集体动力学方面的进展。我们认为，要理解群体水平的振荡，就需要在三个不同的复杂程度层面上研究所考虑的系统：在单个细胞的层面上，在同质群体中，以及在空间结构的群体中。我们讨论了这带来的实验和理论上的挑战，并强调了如何将新的实验技术与从物理学中借鉴的概念工具相结合，帮助我们克服这些挑战。
