Cell fate decision-making events involve the interplay of many molecular processes, ranging from signal transduction to genetic regulation, as well as a set of molecular and physiological feedback loops. Each aspect offers a rich field of investigation in its own right, but to understand the whole process, even in simple terms, we need to consider them together. Here we attempt to characterise this process by focussing on the roles of noise during cell fate decisions. We use a range of recent results to develop a view of the sequence of events by which a cell progresses from a pluripotent or multipotent to a differentiated state: chromatin organisation, transcription factor stoichiometry, and cellular signalling all change during this progression, and all shape cellular variability, which becomes maximal at the transition state.

细胞命运决策事件涉及许多分子过程的相互作用，从信号转导到遗传调控，以及一组分子和生理反馈回路。每个方面都提供了丰富的研究领域，但要理解整个过程，即使是简单的术语，我们也需要将它们一起考虑。在这里，我们试图通过关注噪声在细胞命运决定中的作用来表征这一过程。我们使用一系列最近的结果来了解细胞从多能或多能发展到分化状态的一系列事件：染色质组织、转录因子化学计量和细胞信号在此过程中都发生了变化，所有形状细胞变异性，在过渡状态时变得最大。