|
About the cover image: A wave of gene-expression states, traveling from bottom right to top left, in a field of communicating cells. Each circle is a cell, and the colors represent gene-expression states. The image was produced by vertically stacking temporally adjacent snapshots of a simulation so that the uppermost layer (protruding out of the page) shows the present and the layers below it (going into the page) successively show the future. Each stack of cells (present to future) is identical to its diagonally (towards northwest) adjacent, underlying stack of future cells—a hallmark of dynamic spatial patterns such as waves that coherently transmit information across space. In this issue of Cell Systems, Dang et al. developed a theory to determine how cells can form dynamic spatial patterns by communicating with diffusible molecules and a software package for simulating this communication. Image by Max A. Betjes. |