Stability and Hopf bifurcation in a mathematical model of pluripotent stem cell dynamics

We study a mathematical model describing the dynamics of a pluripotent stem cell population involved in the blood production process in the bone marrow. This model is a differential equation with a time delay. The delay describes the cell cycle duration and is uniformly distributed on an interval. We obtain stability conditions independent of the delay and show that the distributed delay can destabilize the entire system. In particular, it is shown that a Hopf bifurcation can occur. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.