Measurement of phase synchrony of coupled segmentation clocks

The temporal behavior of segmentation clock oscillations shows phase synchrony via mean field like coupling of delta protein restricting to nearest neighbors only, in a configuration of cells arranged in a regular three dimensional array. We found the increase of amplitudes of oscillating dynamical variables of the cells as the activation rate of delta-notch signaling is increased, however, the frequencies of oscillations are decreased correspondingly. Our results show the phase transition from desynchronized to synchronized behavior by identifying three regimes, namely, desynchronized, transition and synchronized regimes supported by various qualitative and quantitative measurements.