SenatusPopulusqueRomanus
New member
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2015
- Messages
- 21
Hi everyone,
I'm not sure I'm posting this in the correct forum but feel free to move my post if so.
So imagine two mice, mouse one contains 1,000 cells of cell type "A" (it's a rare cell population) and mouse two contains 2,500 A cells, due to a genetic alteration.
In order for one cell to become two, it must pass through the cell cycle. In particular, all cells must pass through a stage called "G2" before any one cell then becomes two cells. So we measure the percentage population of cells in G2 at a snapshot in time.
Mouse 1 is 3% in G2, while Mouse 2 is 6% in G2. Hence, while Mouse 2 has 2.5 times the number of cells, it only has twice the division rate, so this cannot fully explain what is happening.
My basic question is, how do I calculate how "important" the G2 measurement is? How much of the trend does it explain?
Can we simply say that division rate explains 80% of the total cell number difference, because 2,500/1,000 = 2.5, 6/3 = 2, and 2/2.5 = 0.8? Is it that simple?
A few points to ward off further questions: the difference in cell death between mouse 1 and 2 are negligible (1% in mouse 1 and 2% in mouse 2, so 10 dead cells at a time for mouse 1 and 50 dead cells at a time for mouse 2, paradoxically), the A cells do not "come" from anywhere, there are no cells before them, they can only divide to create each other or they can divide asymmetrically to create a "B" cell, and lastly the populations of these cells do not change over time. If you check the population in mouse 1 in 6 hours, 4 days, or a month from now, it will still be 1,000. If you check in a year it will actually be higher but we're not interested in that.
I'm not sure I'm posting this in the correct forum but feel free to move my post if so.
So imagine two mice, mouse one contains 1,000 cells of cell type "A" (it's a rare cell population) and mouse two contains 2,500 A cells, due to a genetic alteration.
In order for one cell to become two, it must pass through the cell cycle. In particular, all cells must pass through a stage called "G2" before any one cell then becomes two cells. So we measure the percentage population of cells in G2 at a snapshot in time.
Mouse 1 is 3% in G2, while Mouse 2 is 6% in G2. Hence, while Mouse 2 has 2.5 times the number of cells, it only has twice the division rate, so this cannot fully explain what is happening.
My basic question is, how do I calculate how "important" the G2 measurement is? How much of the trend does it explain?
Can we simply say that division rate explains 80% of the total cell number difference, because 2,500/1,000 = 2.5, 6/3 = 2, and 2/2.5 = 0.8? Is it that simple?
A few points to ward off further questions: the difference in cell death between mouse 1 and 2 are negligible (1% in mouse 1 and 2% in mouse 2, so 10 dead cells at a time for mouse 1 and 50 dead cells at a time for mouse 2, paradoxically), the A cells do not "come" from anywhere, there are no cells before them, they can only divide to create each other or they can divide asymmetrically to create a "B" cell, and lastly the populations of these cells do not change over time. If you check the population in mouse 1 in 6 hours, 4 days, or a month from now, it will still be 1,000. If you check in a year it will actually be higher but we're not interested in that.