Figure 4

Analysis of the roles of circularity and self-cleavage on the spread of the chromosome. ( A ) The vertical axis represents the molecule number of the chromosome (the sense chain). Random seeds 1–10 were used to initiate the 10 different cases. In the cases shown in the top-left panel, all parameter values are set according to the common parameter list (identical to those used for the case shown in Figure 2, and listed in Table 1; wherein, P _CRTT  = 0.9, P _LRTT  = 0.01 and F _IB  = 100). Lines represent the cases for the circular chromosome, and dots for the linear chromosome. The top-right, bottom-left and bottom right panels, shows the cases for the circular chromosome assuming that P _CRTT decreased to 0.2, P _LRTT increased to 0.05, and F _IB decreased to 20, respectively. ( B ) A tick on a horizontal axis denotes a value of the corresponding parameter (except for the top-left panel). Random seeds 1−100 were used to initiate 100 different cases adopting such a parameter value, whereas values of the other parameters are set according to the common parameter list (Table 1). For the cases in the top-left panel, all parameters are set according to this list, but the cases for the circular chromosome and the linear chromosome are compared. The bars in a bar group represent the molecule numbers (averaged over the 100 cases) of the chromosome (the sense chain; yellow), Rep (red), Nsr (green), Nspr (magenta), Asr (blue) and the control (grey) recorded at step 2 × 10⁵. This step was adopted from experience to show the influence of the parameters clearly and also with consideration for the computational (time) cost.