Related papers: Thermodynamic pathways to genome spatial organizat…
Communicating cells can coordinate their gene expressions to form spatial patterns. 'Secrete-and-sense cells' secrete and sense the same molecule to do so and are ubiquitous. Here we address why and how these cells, from disordered…
In eukaryotic genomes, nucleosomes function to compact DNA and to regulate access to it both by simple physical occlusion and by providing the substrate for numerous covalent epigenetic tags. While nucleosome positions in vitro are…
Gene sequences of a deme evolve over time as new chromosome inversions appear in a population via mutations, some of which will replace an existing sequence. The underlying biochemical processes that generates these and other mutations are…
Just like atoms combine into molecules, colloids can self-organize into predetermined structures according to a set of design principles. Controlling valence -- the number of inter-particle bonds -- is a prerequisite for the assembly of…
In this work we employ various methods of analysis (unfolding simulations and comparative analysis of structures and sequences of proteomes of thermophilic organisms) to show that organisms can follow two major strategies of thermophilic…
During interphase, a typical cell nucleus features spatial compartmentalization of transcriptionally active euchromatin and repressed heterochromatin domains. In conventional nuclear organization, euchromatin predominantly occupies the…
Focusing on the DNA-bridging nucleoid proteins Fis and H-NS, and integrating several independent experimental and bioinformatic data sources, we investigate the links between chromosomal spatial organization and global transcriptional…
Strand displacement and tile assembly systems are designed to follow prescribed kinetic rules (i.e., exhibit a specific time-evolution). However, the expected behavior in the limit of infinite time--known as thermodynamic equilibrium--is…
Spatial organisation is a hallmark of all living cells, and recreating it in model systems is a necessary step in the creation of synthetic cells. It is therefore of both fundamental and practical interest to better understand the basic…
The genetic instructions stored in the genome require an additional layer of information to robustly determine cell fate. This additional regulation is provided by the interplay between chromosome-patterning biochemical ("epigenetic") marks…
We investigate a densely packed, non-random arrangement of forty-six chromosomes (46,XY) in human nuclei. Here, we model systems-level chromosomal crosstalk by unifying intrinsic parameters (chromosomal length and number of genes) across…
RNA function crucially depends on its structure. Thermodynamic models currently used for secondary structure prediction rely on computing the partition function of folding ensembles, and can thus estimate minimum free-energy structures and…
A central and long-standing issue in evolutionary theory is the origin of the biological variation upon which natural selection acts1. Some hypotheses suggest that evolutionary change represents an adaptation to the surrounding environment…
This short paper presents an abstract, tunable model of genomic structural change within the cell lifecycle and explores its use with simulated evolution. A well-known Boolean model of genetic regulatory networks is extended to include…
Exchange type chromosome aberrations (ETCAs) are rearrangements of the genome that occur when chromosomes break and the resulting fragments rejoin with other fragments from other chromosomes. ETCAs are commonly observed in cancer cells and…
Complex dynamical systems are often modeled as networks, with nodes representing dynamical units which interact through the network's links. Gene regulatory networks, responsible for the production of proteins inside a cell, are an example…
Combining genome-wide structural models with phenomenological data is at the forefront of efforts to understand the organizational principles regulating the human genome. Here, we use chromosome-chromosome contact data as knowledge-based…
Improved understanding of molecular systems has only emphasised the sophistication of networks within the cell. Simultaneously, the advance of nucleic acid nanotechnology, a platform within which reactions can be exquisitely controlled, has…
In equilibrium self-assembly, microscopic building blocks spontaneously self-organize into stable structures as dictated by their interaction potentials, which limits the accessible structural features to those that correspond to global…
The eukaryotic cell nucleus harbors the DNA genome that is organized in a dynamic chromatin network and embedded in a viscous crowded fluid. This environment directly affects enzymatic reactions and target search processes that access the…