A mechanism of synchronization in interacting multi-cell genetic systems

We investigate a general coupled noisy system with time delays, which may be applied to biologically plausible systems for cell–cell communication in a simplified context. The main conclusion is that appropriate noise intensities and coupling strengths are capable of driving the system to be synchronous. We first provide an analytical treatment for the synchronization process, based on the essential phase-locking mechanism, and then derive sufficient conditions which, if satisfied, ensure existence of the synchrony solution. Finally, a multi-cell system with a synthetic gene regulatory network, which contains both intracellular and extracellular noises and time delays, is adopted to demonstrate effects of extracellular noises and couplings on synchronization.