ArticleeLife2019
Metabolic constraints drive self-organization of specialized cell groups.
Article in eLife, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 29 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed.
- Evolutionary Analysis of Trehalose Breakdown Pathways.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Direct benefits are not necessary for the evolution of multicellularity.Nature ecology & evolution · 2026Article
- Spatiotemporal development of expanding bacterial colonies driven by emergent mechanical constraints and nutrient gradients.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Paradox of the Sub-Plankton: Plausible Mechanisms and Open Problems Underlying Strain-Level Diversity in Microbial Communities.Environmental microbiology · 2025Review
- Spatial population dynamics of bacterial colonies with social antibiotic resistance.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Niche formation and metabolic interactions contribute to stable diversity in a spatially structured cyanobacterial community.The ISME journal · 2025Article
- Article
- Metabolic adaptation pilots the differentiation of human hematopoietic cells.Life science alliance · 2024Article
- The PP2A-like phosphatase Ppg1 mediates assembly of the Far complex to balance gluconeogenic outputs and enables adaptation to glucose depletion.PLoS genetics · 2024Article
- BMX: Biological modelling and interface exchange.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Formation and emergent dynamics of spatially organized microbial systems.Interface focus · 2023Review
- Metabolic heterogeneity and cross-feeding within isogenic yeast populations captured by DILAC.Nature microbiology · 2023Article
- Tumor heterogeneity: preclinical models, emerging technologies, and future applications.Frontiers in oncology · 2023Review
- Probing patterning in microbial consortia with a cellular automaton for spatial organisation.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Selection in a growing colony biases results of mutation accumulation experiments.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- ChemChaste: Simulating spatially inhomogeneous biochemical reaction-diffusion systems for modeling cell-environment feedbacks.GigaScience · 2022Article
- On the Ecological Significance of Phenotypic Heterogeneity in Microbial Populations Undergoing Starvation.Microbiology spectrum · 2022Article
- Cysteine and iron accelerate the formation of ribose-5-phosphate, providing insights into the evolutionary origins of the metabolic network structure.PLoS biology · 2021Article
- A topological look into the evolution of developmental programs.Biophysical journal · 2021Article
- Bend or break: how biochemically versatile molecules enable metabolic division of labor in clonal microbial communities.Genetics · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
How phenotypically distinct states in isogenic cell populations appear and stably co-exist remains unresolved. We find that within a mature, clonal yeast colony developing in low glucose, cells arrange into metabolically disparate cell groups. Using this system, we model and experimentally identify metabolic constraints sufficient to drive such self-assembly. Beginning in a uniformly gluconeogenic state, cells exhibiting a contrary, high pentose phosphate pathway activity state, spontaneously appear and proliferate, in a spatially constrained manner. Gluconeogenic cells in the colony produce and provide a resource, which we identify as trehalose. Above threshold concentrations of external trehalose, cells switch to the new metabolic state and proliferate. A self-organized system establishes, where cells in this new state are sustained by trehalose consumption, which thereby restrains other cells in the trehalose producing, gluconeogenic state. Our work suggests simple physico-chemical principles that determine how isogenic cells spontaneously self-organize into structured assemblies in complimentary, specialized states.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.