How cellular behaviors are regulated and how cells make decisions is one of the great mysteries of life. Cells can choose from a plethora of different behaviors and cell fate decisions, including proliferation, apoptosis, differentiation, self-renewal and migration. These decisions are regulated by signals from the microenvironment and the cellular state at the time when signals are received. Both, environmental signals and cellular states are not static and change constantly creating heterogenous cellular responses of otherwise homogenous cell populations. Changes in cell cycle phases are among the best known examples contributing different cellular states and heterogeneity. However, the relationship between cell cycle, heterogeneity and other dynamic processes at the single-cell level, such as signaling, metabolism etc. and their role in differentiation remain poorly understood.
In the context of emerging biological and medical relevance of single-cell dynamics, this Research Topic aims to enrich the knowledge about the role of cell cycle phase variability for cell fate decisions in health and disease. This topic will cover novel insights into how cells integrate signals regulating cell growth and cell cycle length in homeostasis, inflammation and malignancies and explore the role of organelles and their interactions as hubs for signal processors in this context. To obtain novel mechanistic insights into cell fate regulation and its misregulation during diseases both longitudinal measurements of cell cycle dynamics over several cell generations and short-term high-resolution organelle dynamics will be required. We therefore also welcome novel tools, models and strategies to acquire, process and analyze cellular dynamics with single-cell resolution across different time-scales and resolutions, which are often a prerequisite to study dynamic processes.
The scope of this Research Topic includes dynamic processes contributing to changes in cell behaviors and cell fate. Areas of interest relevant to this topic include, but are not limited to:
- Cell cycle length variation and its role in differentiation.
- Dynamics of signaling pathway activities.
- Organelle interactions and motility.
- Clonal dynamics and competition.
- Stochastic vs. deterministic process.
- Novel tools and techniques to facilitate single-cell dynamics measurements.
How cellular behaviors are regulated and how cells make decisions is one of the great mysteries of life. Cells can choose from a plethora of different behaviors and cell fate decisions, including proliferation, apoptosis, differentiation, self-renewal and migration. These decisions are regulated by signals from the microenvironment and the cellular state at the time when signals are received. Both, environmental signals and cellular states are not static and change constantly creating heterogenous cellular responses of otherwise homogenous cell populations. Changes in cell cycle phases are among the best known examples contributing different cellular states and heterogeneity. However, the relationship between cell cycle, heterogeneity and other dynamic processes at the single-cell level, such as signaling, metabolism etc. and their role in differentiation remain poorly understood.
In the context of emerging biological and medical relevance of single-cell dynamics, this Research Topic aims to enrich the knowledge about the role of cell cycle phase variability for cell fate decisions in health and disease. This topic will cover novel insights into how cells integrate signals regulating cell growth and cell cycle length in homeostasis, inflammation and malignancies and explore the role of organelles and their interactions as hubs for signal processors in this context. To obtain novel mechanistic insights into cell fate regulation and its misregulation during diseases both longitudinal measurements of cell cycle dynamics over several cell generations and short-term high-resolution organelle dynamics will be required. We therefore also welcome novel tools, models and strategies to acquire, process and analyze cellular dynamics with single-cell resolution across different time-scales and resolutions, which are often a prerequisite to study dynamic processes.
The scope of this Research Topic includes dynamic processes contributing to changes in cell behaviors and cell fate. Areas of interest relevant to this topic include, but are not limited to:
- Cell cycle length variation and its role in differentiation.
- Dynamics of signaling pathway activities.
- Organelle interactions and motility.
- Clonal dynamics and competition.
- Stochastic vs. deterministic process.
- Novel tools and techniques to facilitate single-cell dynamics measurements.