Figure 5. Synchronisation Is Realised through Diffusion of External cAMP.

(A) Shows the synchronisation mechanism for the case of three interacting Dictyostelium cells. Each cell has a different set of kinetic constants. kⁱ_j is the k_j in the Laub-Loomis model for the i-th cell.

(B) For twenty individual cells with no interaction and a 10% level of variation in the initial conditions and the kinetic constants between the cells, the internal cAMP oscillations are completely out of phase with each other.

(C) For the extended model incorporating the diffusion mechanism, with the same level of variation between the cells, the oscillations are synchronised in less than 10 min.

(D) Even for a 20% level of variation between the cells, the extended model shows highly synchronised oscillations.