Computational energetic model of morphogenesis based on multi-agent cellular potts model

Abstract

The Cellular Potts Model (CPM) is a cellular automaton (CA), developed by Glazier and Graner in 1992, to model the morphogenesis. In this model, the entities are the cells. It has already been improved in many ways; however, a key point in biological systems, not defined in CPM, is energetic exchange between entities. We integrate this energetic concept inside the CPM. We simulate a cell differentiation inside a growing cell tissue. The results are the emergence of dynamic patterns coming from the consumption and production of energy. A model described by CA is less scalable than one described by a multi-agent system (MAS). We have developed a MAS based on the CPM, where a cell agent is implemented from the cell of CPM together with several behaviours, in particular the consumption and production of energy from the consumption of molecules. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.