Inference for the random coefficients bifurcating autoregressive model for cell lineage studies

Abstract

Cell lineage data consist of observations on quantitative characteristics of the descendants of an initial cell. The bifurcating autoregressive model has been previously used to model dependencies in cell lineage data by considering each line of descent to be a first order autoregressive process and allowing the environmental effects of sisters to be correlated. Here the basic bifurcating autoregressive model is modified to include random coefficients which allows for the relationship between mother and daughter cells to depend on environmental factors. Maximum likelihood inference under the assumption of multivariate normality is considered and the method is illustrated on several data sets..