Figure 2. Dependency of stable Nanog states on Nanog autoregulation and noise.

(A) The bifurcation diagram indicates the existence of Nanog states depending on the autoregulatory transcription rate s₄. The lower solid line shows the existence of Nanog-low (NL) states and the upper solid line shows the existence of Nanog-high (NH) states. Within the bistable region (shaded in grey) coexisting stable states are separated by unstable states (dashed line). (B) Simulating a cell population, the heat map illustrates the proportion of NL cells depending on the transcription rate s₄ and on the transcriptional noise σ_N at time point t = 4320min (i.e. 3 days of in silico culture). For any value of the background noise, an increase in the transcription rate s₄ reduces the proportion of NL cells.