Related papers: Universal features of cell polarization processes
Chemotactic cells establish cell polarity in the absence of external guidance cues. Such self-organized polarity is induced by spontaneous symmetry breaking in the intracellular activities, which produces an emergent memory effect…
Phase separation plays an role in determining the self-assembly of biological and soft-matter systems. In biological systems, liquid-liquid phase separation inside a cell leads to the formation of various macromolecular aggregates. The…
Cell growth and gene expression, essential elements of all living systems, have long been the focus of biophysical interrogation. Advances in single-cell methods have invigorated theoretical studies into these processes. However, until…
Biological cells exhibit a hierarchical spatial organization, where various compartments harbor condensates that form by phase separation. Cells can control the emergence of these condensates by affecting compartment size, the amount of the…
We study a coarsening process of one-dimensional cell complexes. We show that if cell boundaries move with velocities proportional to the difference in size of neighboring cells, then the average cell size grows at a prescribed exponential…
Initial conditions after quenching from a high-temperature paraelectric phase to a low-temperature ferroelectric phase have a substantial impact on the temporal development and formation of stable polarization domain structures which…
A biophysical model of epimorphic regeneration based on a continuum percolation process of fully penetrable disks in two dimensions is proposed. All cells within a randomly chosen disk of the regenerating organism are assumed to receive a…
Phase separation into compositionally and physically distinct domains is ubiquitous in (non)living matter ranging from alloys and emulsions to biomolecular condensates in cells. The organization of these domains can be controlled, for…
How the cells break symmetry and organize their edge activity to move directionally is a fun- damental question in cell biology. Physical models of cell motility commonly rely on gradients of regulatory factors and/or feedback from the…
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…
Planar cell polarity (PCP), the coherent in-plane polarization of a tissue on multicellular length scales, provides directional information that guides a multitude of developmental processes at cellular and tissue levels. While it is…
A general theoretical framework is put forth to organize and understand various observed phenomena and mathematical relationships in the field of molecular biology. By modeling each cell in eukaryotic organisms as a processor having a…
When a system is brought to a metastable state, nuclei of the equilibrium phase form and grow. This is the well-known nucleation and growth of first-order phase transitions. Near a critical point of a continuous phase transition, critical…
Cell differentiation in multicellular organisms is a complex process whose mechanism can be understood by a reductionist approach, in which the individual processes that control the generation of different cell types are identified.…
Some dividing cells sense their shape by becoming polarized along their long axis. Cell polarity is controlled in part by polarity proteins like Rho GTPases cycling between active membrane-bound forms and inactive cytosolic forms, modeled…
The collective behaviour of confluent cell sheets is strongly influenced both by polar forces, arising through cytoskeletal propulsion and by active inter-cellular forces, which are mediated by interactions across cell-cell junctions. We…
Isologous diversification theory for cell differentiation is proposed, based on simulations of interacting cells with biochemical networks and cell division process following consumption of some chemicals. According to the simulations of…
Cell spreading is investigated at various scales in order to understand motility of living cells which is essential for a range of physiological activities in higher organisms as well as in microbes. At a microscopic scale, it has been seen…
The control of polarization, an essential property of light, is of wide scientific and technological interest. The general problem of generating arbitrary time-varying states of polarization (SOP) has always been mathematically formulated…
A novel theory for cell differentiation is proposed, based on simulations with interacting artificial cells which have metabolic networks within, and divide into two when the final product is accumulated. Results of simulations with coupled…