(424f) Mechanistic Modeling of the Breakage Function in Eukaryotic Cell Populations

All eukaryotes share a similar mechanism governing progress of the cell through the cell cycle. The mechanism is based on a chemical oscillator and cell division occurs when triggered by the state of this oscillator.

A model of this oscillator has been formulated and solved numerically using Monte Carlo simulations. From simulations of a large number of cell cycles, one easily obtains the distribution of states of the cells in the population as well as the distribution of states of dividing cells. Knowing these two distributions, the breakage function can be calculated.

We will describe the cell cycle model and present results for the breakage function for various growth conditions and for different distribution of daughter cell sizes.