Available at: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/2813
Date of Award
6-2023
Degree Name
MS in Mathematics
Department/Program
Mathematics
College
College of Science and Mathematics
Advisor
Elena Dimitrova
Advisor Department
Mathematics
Advisor College
College of Science and Mathematics
Abstract
Pluripotent stem cells have been observed to segregate into Turing-like patterns during the early stages of Dox-inducible hiPSC differentiation. In this thesis, we de- velop a tool to quantify the tortuosity in the patterns formed by colonies of pluripo- tent stem cells using methods from topological data analysis. We use clustering techniques and the mapper algorithm to create simplicial complexes representing samples of cells and detail a method of evaluating the tortuosity of these complexes. We use the resulting persistence landscapes and their associated norms to evaluate experimental data and simulated data from an agent based model. This thesis finds evidence that tortuosity can be used to detect differentiation in stem cell colonies over time and discusses the accuracy of computer simulations of such colonies.