We develop a Fokker-Planck theory of tissue growth with three types of cells (symmetrically dividing, asymmetrically dividing, and nondividing) as main agents to study the growth dynamics of human cerebral organoids. Fitting the theory to lineage tracing data obtained in next generation sequencing experiments, we show that the growth of cerebral organoids is a critical process. We derive analytical expressions describing the time evolution of clonal lineage sizes and show how power-law distributions arise in the limit of long times due to the vanishing of a characteristic growth scale. We discuss that the independence of critical growth on initial conditions could be biologically advantageous.

• Received 12 June 2022
• Accepted 30 August 2023

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.178402

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society