Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 227, 851–863 (2018)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2018-800014-7

Regular Article

The collective dynamics of NF − κB in cellular ensembles

Cluster synchrony, splay states, and chimeras

¹ Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, School of Life Sciences, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad 500046, India
² School of Computational and Integrative Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110067, India

^a e-mail: donepudiraviteja@gmail.com

Received: 31 January 2018
Received in final form: 10 March 2018
Published online: 19 October 2018

Abstract

The transcription factor NF − κB is a crucial component in inflammatory signalling. Its dynamics is known to be oscillatory and has been extensively studied. Using a recently developed model of NF − κB regulation, we examine the collective dynamics of a network of NF − κB oscillators that are coupled exogenously by a common drive (in this case a periodically varying cytokine signal corresponding to the TNF molecule concentration). There is multistability owing to the overlapping of Arnol’d tongues in each of the oscillators, and thus the collective dynamics exhibit a variety of complex dynamical states. We also study the case of a globally (mean field) coupled network and observe that the ensemble can display global synchronisation, cluster synchronisation and splay states. In addition, there can be dynamical chimeras, namely coexisting synchronised and desynchronized clusters. The basins of attraction of these different collective states are studied and the parametric dependence in the basin uncertainty is examined.