A discrete non-linear Markov model for a population of interacting cells (Q2277679)

The biological problem considered in this paper is cell cycle analysis. Evidently, the discrete part of the formulation stems from by viewing the DNA contents of cells in terms of a finite set of numbers. However, the time parameter in the formulation is continuous. In order to take into account crowding effects, growth of a cell population is modelled as a pure jump non-linear Markov process. Existence and uniqueness of solutions for the corresponding martingale problem are proved by means of fixed point techniques. There is a large literature on cell cycle analysis in various biological and biomathematics journals. But, unfortunately, none of this literature is cited. It is, therefore, difficult to judge where this paper fits into a more general picture. There are also good reasons to question the efficacy of existence theorems in applications. In this computer age, methods of constructing solutions seem much more pertinent for applications so that a user may begin to experiment and understand the model with respect to competing formulations.