Related papers: Chimeric protein complexes in hybrid species gener…
Most of the DNA that composes a complex organism is non-coding and defined as junk. Even the coding part is composed of genes that affect the phenotype differently. Therefore, a random mutation has an effect on the specimen fitness that…
The structure and function of a protein are determined by its amino acid sequence. While random mutations change a protein's sequence, evolutionary forces shape its structural fold and biological activity. Studies have shown that neutral…
We develop a theoretical framework on the mechanism of combinatorial binding of transcription factors (TFs) with their specific binding sites on DNA. We consider three possible mechanisms viz. monomer, hetero-oligomer and coordinated…
Bristled and membranous insect wings have co-evolved despite apparently serving the same functionality. We emulate flight physics using an automated free-fall experiment to better understand how and why several distinct wing forms may have…
Natural genomes sometimes encode two different proteins in staggered reading frames of the same DNA sequence. Despite the prevalence of these 'overlapping genes' across the tree of life, it remains unknown whether arbitrary protein pairs…
Phase separation has emerged as an essential concept for the spatial organization inside biological cells. However, despite the clear relevance to virtually all physiological functions, we understand surprisingly little about what phases…
Viral capsids are structurally constrained by interactions amongst the amino acids of the constituting proteins. Therefore, epistasis is expected to evolve amongst sites engaged in physical interactions, and to influence their substitution…
Mutations create the genetic diversity on which selective pressures can act, yet also create structural instability in proteins. How, then, is it possible for organisms to ameliorate mutation-induced perturbations of protein stability while…
Assembly and stability of mitotic spindle is governed by the interplay of various intra-cellular forces, e.g. the forces generated by motor proteins by sliding overlapping anti-parallel microtubules (MTs) polymerized from the opposite…
Selection in a time-periodic environment is modeled via the continuous-time two-player replicator dynamics, which for symmetric pay-offs reduces to the Fisher equation of mathematical genetics. For a sufficiently rapid and cyclic…
Proteins encoded by genes containing regions of variable number tandem repeats (VNTRs) are known to be polymorphic within species but the influence of their instability in molecular interactions remains unclear. VNTRs are overrepresented in…
Understanding the molecular mechanisms driving the binding between bio-molecules is a crucial challenge in molecular biology. In this respect, characteristics like the preferentially hydrophobic composition of the binding interfaces, the…
Species complexes are groups of closely related populations exchanging genes through dispersal. We study the dynamics of the structure of species complexes in a class of metapopulation models where demes can exchange genetic material…
The three dimensional structure of a protein is an outcome of the interactions of its constituent amino acids in 3D space. Considering the amino acids as nodes and the interactions among them as edges we have constructed and analyzed…
Chitin and protein are two main building blocks for many natural biomaterials. The interaction between chitin and protein critically determines the properties of the composite biological materials. As living organisms usually encounter…
Phenotypic variation is a hallmark of cellular physiology. Metabolic heterogeneity, in particular, underpins single-cell phenomena such as microbial drug tolerance and growth variability. Much research has focussed on transcriptomic and…
A single semiflexible polymer chain folds into a toroidal object under poor solvent conditions. In this study, we examined the morphological change in such a toroidal state as a function of the width and stiffness of the chain together with…
Nearly a quarter of genomic sequences and almost half of all receptors that are likely to be targets for drug design are integral membrane proteins. Understanding the detailed mechanisms of the folding of membrane proteins is a largely…
The proteins involved in cells' mechanobiological processes have evolved specialized and surprising responses to applied forces. Biochemical transformations that show catch-to-slip switching and force-induced pathway switching serve…
Rhythmic activities that alternate between coherent and incoherent phases are ubiquitous in chemical, ecological, climate, or neural systems. Despite their importance, general mechanisms for their emergence are little understood. In order…