Cell Behavior
Glioblastoma is the most malignant form of brain cancer. It is extremely invasive; the mechanisms that govern invasion are not well understood. To better understand the process of invasion, we conducted an in vitro experiment in which a 3d…
It has been known for many years that small fractions of persister cells resist killing in many bacterial colony-antimicrobial confrontations. These persisters are not believed to be mutants. Rather it has been hypothesized that they are…
Morphologies of moving amoebae are categorized into two types. One is the ``neutrophil'' type in which the long axis of cell roughly coincides with its moving direction. This type of cell extends a leading edge at the front and retracts a…
The reproduction of a living cell requires a repeatable set of chemical events to be properly coordinated. Such events define a replication cycle, coupling the growth and shape change of the cell membrane with internal metabolic reactions.…
In human cells, estrogenic signals induce cyclical association and dissociation of specific proteins with the DNA in order to activate transcription of estrogen-responsive genes. These oscillations can be modeled by assuming a large number…
This paper develops a set of simplified dynamical models with which to explore the conditions under which division of labor leads to optimized system output, as measured by the rate of production of a given product. We consider two models:…
We build a model for the hepatic fatty acid metabolism and its metabolic and genetic regulations. The model has two functioning modes: synthesis and oxidation of fatty acids. We provide a sufficient condition (the strong lipolytic…
The classical macroscopic chemotaxis equations have previously been derived from an individual-based description of the tactic response of cells that use a "run-and-tumble" strategy in response to environmental cues. Here we derive…
In this article we highlight chemotaxis (cellular movement) as a rich source of potential engineering applications and computational models, highlighting current research and possible future work. We first give a brief description of the…
We study a spatially inhomogeneous model of cancer growth based on Michaelis--Menten kinetics, subjected to additive Gaussian noise and multiplicative dichotomous noise. In presence of the latter, we can observe a transition between two…
Cellular life requires the presence of a set of biochemical mechanisms in order to maintain a predictable process of growth and division. Several attempts have been made towards the building of minimal protocells from a top-down approach,…
Artificial biological pacemakers were developed and tested in canine ventricles. Next steps will require obtaining oscillations sensitive to external regulations, and robust with respect to long term drifts of expression levels of pacemaker…
The compartmental model is a basic tool for studying signal propagation in neurons, and, if the model parameters are adequately defined, it can also be of help in the study of electrical or fluid transport. Here we show that the input…
Unlike isolated beta-cells, which usually produce continuous spikes or fast and irregular bursts, electrically coupled beta-cells are apt to exhibit robust bursting action potentials. We consider the noise induced by thermal fluctuations as…
Membrane potential in a mathematical model of a cardiac myocyte can be formulated in different ways. Assuming a spatially homogeneous myocyte that is strictly charge-conservative and electroneutral as a whole, two methods will be compared:…
A key problem of eukaryotic cell motility is the signaling mechanism of chemoattractant gradient sensing. Recent experiments have revealed the molecular correlate of gradient sensing: Frontness molecules, such as PI3P and Rac, localize at…
Although Turing pattern is one of the most universal mechanisms for pattern formation, in its standard model the number of stripes changes with the system size, since the wavelength of the pattern is invariant: It fails to preserve the…
We study two mechanisms for the formation of protein patterns near membranes of living cells by mathematical modelling. Self-assembly of protein domains by electrostatic lipid-protein interactions is contrasted with self-organization due to…
Monte Carlo simulations of the number of stem cells in human colon crypts allow for fluctuations which kill the population after sufficiently long times.
This manuscript uses a statistical mechanical approach to study the effect of the adhesion, through MOCA protein, on cell locomotion. The MOCA protein regulates cell-cell adhesion, and we explore its potential role in the cell movement. We…