A cellular automata model for cell differentiation

Developmental processes generating spontaneously coordinated and inhomogeneous spatiotemporal patterns with differentiated cell types are one of the main problems in modern biology. In this paper a cellular automata model for cell differentiation is proposed. It takes into account the time evolution of the gene networks representing each cell, cell–cell interactions through gene couplings and cell division. Our computer simulations show that a society with differentiated cell types exhibiting the main features observed in biological morphogenesis emerges from a marginally stable regime at the edge of chaos.