Related papers: Diffusion, dimensionality and noise in transcripti…
Several studies highlighted the relevance of extrinsic noise in shaping cell decision making and differentiation in molecular networks. Experimental evidences of phenotypic differentiation are given by the presence of bimodal distributions…
A genetic switch may be realised by a certain operator sector on the DNA strand from which either genetic code, to the left or to the right of this operator sector, can be transcribed and the corresponding information processed. This switch…
Transcription factors (TFs) are key regulators of gene expression. Based on the classical scenario in which the TF search process switches between one-dimensional motion along the DNA molecule and free Brownian motion in the nucleus, we…
We study theoretically the feasibility of using transverse electronic transport within a nanopore for rapid DNA sequencing. Specifically, we examine the effects of the environment and detection probes on the distinguishability of the DNA…
Experiments measuring DNA extension in nanochannels are at odds with even the most basic predictions of current scaling arguments for the conformations of confined semiflexible polymers such as DNA. We show that a theory based on a weakly…
Surviving in a diverse environment requires corresponding organism responses. At the cellular level, such adjustment relies on the transcription factors (TFs) which must rapidly find their target sequences amidst a vast amount of…
Inside individual cells, expression of genes is inherently stochastic and manifests as cell-to-cell variability or noise in protein copy numbers. Since proteins half-lives can be comparable to the cell-cycle length, randomness in…
In eukaryotic cell nuclei, a variety of DNA interactions with nuclear elements occur, which, in combination with intra- and inter- chromosomal cross-talks, shape a functional 3D architecture. In some cases they are organized by active, i.e.…
A detailed stochastic model of single-gene auto-regulation is established and its solutions are explored when mRNA dynamics is fast compared with protein dynamics and in the opposite regime. The model includes all the sources of randomness…
The process of protein search for specific binding sites on DNA is fundamentally important since it marks the beginning of all major biological processes. We present a theoretical investigation that probes the role of DNA sequence symmetry,…
The unconstrained genomic DNA of bacteria forms a coil, which volume exceeds 1000 times the volume of the cell. Since prokaryotes lack a membrane-bound nucleus, in sharp contrast with eukaryotes, the DNA may consequently be expected to…
Spatial heterogeneity is a hallmark of living systems, even at the molecular scale in individual cells. A key example is the partitioning of membrane-bound proteins via lipid domain formation or cytoskeleton-induced corralling. Yet the…
In many cases, transcriptional regulation involves the binding of transcription factors at sites on the DNA that are not immediately adjacent to the promoter of interest. This action at a distance is often mediated by the formation of DNA…
How diffusion models generalize beyond their training set is not known, and is somewhat mysterious given two facts: the optimum of the denoising score matching (DSM) objective usually used to train diffusion models is the score function of…
Lateral diffusion of molecules on surfaces plays a very important role in various biological processes, including lipid transport across the cell membrane, synaptic transmission and other phenomena such as exo- and endocytosis, signal…
Homeostasis of protein concentrations in cells is crucial for their proper functioning, and this requires concentrations (at their steady-state levels) to be stable to fluctuations. Since gene expression is regulated by proteins such as…
The equation which describes a particle diffusing in a logarithmic potential arises in diverse physical problems such as momentum diffusion of atoms in optical traps, condensation processes, and denaturation of DNA molecules. A detailed…
The twisting deformation of mechanically stretched DNA molecules is studied by a coarse grained Hamiltonian model incorporating the fundamental interactions that stabilize the double helix and accounting for the radial and angular base pair…
Stochasticity in gene expression can give rise to fluctuations in protein levels and lead to phenotypic variation across a population of genetically identical cells. Recent experiments indicate that bursting and feedback mechanisms play…
Transcription factor binding sites vary in their specificity, both within and between species. Binding specificity has a strong impact on the evolution of gene expression, because it determines how easily regulatory interactions are gained…