An autonomous decentralized model with nonlocal interaction: Roles of an extracellular matrix in organization of a multicellular system

Abstract

Abstract The reaction‐diffusion model is one of the theoretical approaches used to realize autonomous decentralized systems. The model conventionally assumes that all components of a system locally interact with each other under ideal conditions, ignoring any effect from the environment. However, it has recently become clear that nonlocal interactions mediated by the environment play an important role in the ontogenesis of multicellular organisms, a typical autonomous decentralized system. In this paper, we discuss the “redifferentiation” phenomenon of cancer cells in which such a nonlocal interaction is considered to play an essential role. Further, we propose a model to reproduce this phenomenon and mathematically analyze our model to construct autonomous decentralized systems with nonlocal interactions mediated by the environment in the future. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn Pt 3, 87(7): 55–65, 2004; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/ ecjc.10101