Related papers: Epigenetic Tracking: a Model for Multicellular Bio…
In higher organisms, all cells share the same genome, but every cell expresses only a limited and specific set of genes that defines the cell type. During cell division, not only the genome, but also the cell type is inherited by the…
Rapid advance of experimental techniques provides an unprecedented in-depth view into complex developmental processes. Still, little is known on how the complexity of multicellular organisms evolved by elaborating developmental programs and…
An adult human body is made up of some 30 to 40 trillion cells, all of which stem from a single fertilized egg cell. The process by which the right cells appear to arrive in their right numbers at the right time at the right place --…
Living cells exhibit both growth and regeneration of body tissues. Epigenetic Tracking (ET), models this growth and regenerative qualities of living cells and has been used to generate complex 2D and 3D shapes. In this paper, we present an…
How do mammalian cells that share the same genome exist in notably distinct phenotypes, exhibiting differences in morphology, gene expression patterns, and epigenetic chromatin statuses? Furthermore how do cells of different phenotypes…
Maintaining tissue homeostasis requires appropriate regulation of stem cell differentiation. The Waddington landscape posits that gene circuits in a cell form a potential landscape of different cell types, wherein cells follow attractors of…
Populations of isogenic embryonic stem cells or clonal bacteria often exhibit extensive phenotypic heterogeneity which arises from stochastic intrinsic dynamics of cells. The internal state of the cell can be transmitted epigenetically in…
Characterization of pluripotent states, in which cells can both self-renew and differentiate, and the irreversible loss of pluripotency are important research areas in developmental biology. In particular, an understanding of these…
One of the major challenges in biology concerns the integration of data across length and time scales into a consistent framework: how do macroscopic properties and functionalities arise from the molecular regulatory networks - and how can…
Whole-cell computational models aim to predict cellular phenotypes from genotype by representing the entire genome, the structure and concentration of each molecular species, each molecular interaction, and the extracellular environment.…
Stem cell regeneration is a vital biological process in self-renewing tissues, governing development and tissue homeostasis. Gene regulatory network dynamics are pivotal in controlling stem cell regeneration and cell type transitions.…
Proteins are macromolecules that mediate a significant fraction of the cellular processes that underlie life. An important task in bioengineering is designing proteins with specific 3D structures and chemical properties which enable…
Understanding the spatial organisation of the genome in the cell nucleus is one of the current grand challenges in biophysics. Certain biochemical -- or epigenetic -- marks that are deposited along the genome are thought to play an…
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…
Cell biomechanics involve a great number of complex phenomena that are fundamental to the evolution of life itself and other associated processes, ranging from the very early stages of embryo-genesis to the maintenance of damaged structures…
Cells often exhibit different and stable phenotypes from the same DNA sequence. Robustness and plasticity of such cellular states are controlled by diverse transcriptional and epigenetic mechanisms, among them the modification of…
Most conspicuous organisms are multicellular and most multicellular organisms develop somatic cells to perform specific, non-reproductive tasks. The ubiquity of this division of labor suggests that it is highly advantageous. In this paper,…
Epigenetics is the study of how people's behavior and environments influence the way their genes are expressed, even though their DNA sequence is itself unchanged. By aggregating age-related epigenetic markers, epigenetic 'clocks' have…
A common metaphor for describing development is a rugged "epigenetic landscape" where cell fates are represented as attracting valleys resulting from a complex regulatory network. Here, we introduce a framework for explicitly constructing…
Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition (EMT), and the corresponding reverse process, Mesenchymal-Epithelial Transition (MET), are dynamic and reversible cellular programs orchestrated by many changes at biochemical and morphological levels. A…