Mixing, competence, and commitment set the stability of cell identity

Effective commitment rate between cell identities in a stochastic Markov model is tunable via mixing, competence, and commitment, with contributions that sum to one.

• Why it matters: Identity stability must balance noise resistance with rapid switching when cued, but it is unclear which control channels determine how quickly commitment occurs.
• What they did: Cells are modeled as microstates with stochastic transitions, and commitment stability is measured by an effective commitment rate using a Markov model that removes committed cells; single-cell mouse embryonic stem cell data are reanalyzed to estimate timing.
• The result: Interventions sharing the same effective commitment rate are indistinguishable by survival alone, but can be separated by microstate fractions or sorting speed; time-varying competence makes pulsed signalling commit more cells than sustained equal dose, and mouse data suggest competence acquisition time is about equal to waiting time before commitment.

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