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GATA1–PU.1 Toggle Switch: Building a Waddington Landscape from a Gene Circuit

Interactive 3D simulation of the GATA1–PU.1 mutual-repression toggle switch that commits blood progenitors to the erythroid or myeloid lineage: a stochastic gene-network model whose simulated cell population carves out its own Waddington epigenetic landscape.

Molecular Biology3DAdvanced60 FPS📱 Mobile-adapted⇄ 2D version

Conrad Waddington's 1957 epigenetic landscape pictures a stem cell as a ball rolling downhill into branching fate valleys — a beautiful metaphor, but usually drawn by hand. This simulation builds the landscape from the actual mechanism instead: a population of virtual blood progenitors, each carrying two mutually repressing transcription factors (GATA1 and PU.1), integrated as a stochastic gene-regulatory circuit. Where the cells spend their time becomes the valleys; where they rarely go becomes the ridges, computed live as a quasi-potential from the population's own visitation statistics. Tune the Hill cooperativity to switch the landscape between one basin and two, add noise to watch committed cells occasionally jump the ridge, bias the signal to skew outcomes toward the erythroid or myeloid fate, and release a fresh progenitor cohort to watch the whole differentiation process unfold from scratch.

⚙ Under the hood

A stochastic gene-network simulation of the GATA1–PU.1 mutual-repression toggle switch that commits blood progenitors to the erythroid or myeloid lineage, with a 3D quasi-potential landscape computed live from the simulated cell population's own visitation statistics.

stem cellsgene regulatory networkWaddington landscapebistabilityhematopoiesissystems biology

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install