ABSTRACT
A simple cellular form-building enterprise is provided by a sparse culture of fibroblasts in which the arrangement and distribution of the cells is initially random. As the culture grows the cells interact to form a variety of patterns. Pattern generation based on random movements and mutual constraints is a stochastic process. The inherently precise method appears appropriate for the consideration of local pattern-forming processes involving one or several cell types as exemplified in the generation of local tissue architecture in vivo and sorting out experiments in vitro. The stochastic simple birth process however implies that the growth of any one cell is no more predictable than the decay of a single atom of isotope. All morphogenetic processes can be considered as inherently precise processes, the function of the genome in morphogenesis is to specify the rules governing mutual cellular constraints in each temporal and spatial compartment of development.
