Speaker
Description
Cell polarity provides a classic example of spatial self-organization in biological systems, where proteins accumulate asymmetrically on the cell membrane. This phenomenon can be modeled by the mass-conserved activator–substrate (MCAS) model, which is formulated as a set of reaction–diffusion equations describing the exchange between membrane-bound and cytosolic species. In the standard two-species MCAS model, multiple localized peaks typically compete and coarsen into a single steady-state peak. However, previous studies have shown that introducing an intermediate diffusive species, which forms an indirect conversion pathway, can yield equalized multi-peak patterns. Building on this framework, our work demonstrates how equalization can also occur within a two-species MCAS model when the effect of the intermediate species is represented by balanced sink and source terms in the reaction–diffusion equations. With these terms, the reduced model exhibits both competition and equalization regimes. We further investigate how the retention rate of the intermediate species controls the transition between these patterning modes.