The Origin of Phenotypic Heterogeneity in a Clonal Cell Population In Vitro

Abstract

The observations emphasize the importance of the "ecological" context and suggest that, consistently with the "extrinsic" model, local stochastic interactions between phenotypically identical cells play a key role in the initiation of phenotypic switch. Nevertheless, the "intrinsic" model also shows some other aspects of reality: The phenotypic switch is not triggered exclusively by the local environmental variations, but also depends to some extent on the phenotypic intrinsic robustness of the cells.