John Val and John J. Tyson
Department of Biology,
Virginia Technical Institute and State University,
Blacksburg, VA. 24061.
email: j.val@hccnet.nl
October 14, 1996
In order to obtain information on the kinetics of cell cycle events in an individual cell, synchronized populations are released after being sorted in some way. Unfortunately, in most cases, synchronization is not perfect. Here we put forward two general computation methods to convert time series of average cellular output to the output of a single cell. The first method assumes that the initial synchronization is imperfect, but thereafter cells traverse the state space deterministically. As a result the initial variation in the population is maintained throughout the experiment. The second method assumes that initially the synchronization is perfect, but that cells lose synchrony due to stochastic events. The basic requirements for either method are a time series of experimental output together with information about the distribution of cells over the cell cycle.