Related papers: Increased accuracy of ligand sensing by receptor d…
A pre-synaptic neuron releases diffusing neurotransmitters such as glutamate that activate post-synaptic receptors. The amplitude of the post-synaptic current, mostly mediated by glutamatergic (AMPARs) receptors, is a fundamental signal…
Many types of cells are able to accurately sense shallow gradients of chemicals across their diameters, allowing the cells to move towards or away from chemical sources. This chemotactic ability relies on the remarkable capacity of cells to…
Receptor-ligand binding is a critical first step in signal transduction and the duration of the interaction can impact signal generation. In mammalian cells, clustering of receptors may be facilitated by heterogeneous zones of lipids, known…
This paper proposes a method for accurately estimating the relative position between two nodes with unknown locations in a diffusion-based molecular communication environment. A specialized node structure is designed, combining a central…
NMDA receptors are ion channels activated by the neurotransmitter glutamate in the mammalian brain and are important in synaptic function and plasticity, but are also found in extrasynaptic locations and influence neuronal excitability.…
Molecular Communications (MC) uses molecules as information carriers between nanomachines. MC channel in practice can be crowded with different types of molecules, i.e., ligands, which can have similar binding properties causing severe…
Gradient sensing requires at least two measurements at different points in space. These measurements must then be communicated to a common location to be compared, which is unavoidably noisy. While much is known about the limits of…
In this paper, diffusion-based molecular commu- nication with ligand receptor receivers is studied. Information messages are assumed to be encoded via variations of the con- centration of molecules. The randomness in the ligand reception…
Biological sensory systems generally operate out of equilibrium, which often leads to their improved performance. Here, we study the sensitivity of ligand concentration for a general receptor model, which is generally in the non-equilibrium…
Cellular decision-making based on information received from the external environment is frequently initiated by transmembrane receptors. These receptors are known to propagate such information by triggering a series of irreversible,…
Experiments show that cellular uptake of nanoparticles, via receptor-mediated endocytosis, strongly depends on nanoparticle size. There is an optimal size, approximately 50 nm in diameter, at which cellular uptake is the highest. In…
Discerning the neurotransmitter dysregulation is a hallmark of neurological disorders and diseases, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and multiple sclerosis. The concentration of neurotransmitters in the synaptic cleft is particularly…
Molecular signalling in living cells occurs at low copy numbers and is thereby inherently limited by the noise imposed by thermal diffusion. The precision at which biochemical receptors can count signalling molecules is intimately related…
The lateral diffusion of lipids within membrane is of paramount importance, serving as a central mechanism in numerous physiological processes including cell signaling, membrane trafficking, protein activity regulation, and energy…
How can cells embedded into a gradient concentration triangulate the position of the source and migrate toward their final destination? The source triangulation requires to recover the three dimensional coordinates of the source from the…
The performance of molecular communication is significantly impacted by the reception process of the messenger molecules. The receptors' size and density, however, have yet to be investigated. In this letter, we analyze the effect of…
Biological cells are often found to sense their chemical environment near the single-molecule detection limit. Surprisingly, this precision is higher than simple estimates of the fundamental physical limit, hinting towards active sensing…
Molecular Communications (MC) is a bio-inspired communication technique that uses molecules to transfer information among bio-nano devices. In this paper, we focus on the detection problem for biological MC receivers employing ligand…
Biomolecular condensates form on timescales of seconds in cells upon environmental or compositional changes. Condensate formation is thus argued to act as a mechanism for sensing such changes and quickly initiating downstream processes,…
The lateral diffusion and trapping of protein receptors within the postsynaptic membrane of a neuron plays a key role in determining the strength of synaptic connections and their regulation during learning and memory. In this paper we…