The paper references c.u. to their "ODE model construction & simulation" which is referenced back to a 2016 paper that uses the term in reference to a simulation in MATLAB.
c.u. is abbreviation for CONCENTRATION UNIT not CELL UNIT.
> Given the absence of experimental measurements of protein concentrations, we use concentration units (c.u.) as unit to represent the relative concentrations of proteins in the model
quoting <