Related papers: Adaptation dynamics in densely clustered chemorece…
In many cellular signaling pathways, key components form clusters at the cell membrane. Although much work has focused on the mechanisms behind such cluster formation, the implications for downstream signaling remain poorly understood.…
The chemotactic pathway allows bacteria to respond and adapt to environmental changes, by tuning the tumbling and running motions that are due to clockwise and counterclockwise rotations of their flagella. The pathway is tightly regulated…
Molecular recognition, which is essential in processing information in biological systems, takes place in a crowded noisy biochemical environment and requires the recognition of a specific target within a background of various similar…
Spatial information from cell-surface receptors is crucial for processes that require signal processing and sensing of the environment. Here, we investigate the optimal placement of such receptors through a theoretical model that minimizes…
Single eukaryotic cells commonly sense and follow chemical gradients, performing chemotaxis. Recent experiments and theories, however, show that even when single cells do not chemotax, clusters of cells may, if their interactions are…
Collective cell migration in response to a chemical cue occurs in many biological processes such as morphogenesis and cancer metastasis. Clusters of migratory cells in these systems are capable of responding to gradients of less than 1%…
Most of our understanding of bacterial chemotaxis comes from studies of Escherichia coli. However, recent evidence suggests significant departures from the E. coli paradigm in other bacterial species. This variation may stem from different…
Cooperative interactions among sensory receptors provide a general mechanism to increase the sensitivity of signal transduction. In particular, bacterial chemotaxis receptors interact cooperatively to produce an ultrasensitive response to…
The chemotaxis pathway in the bacterium Escherichia coli allows cells to detect changes in external ligand concentration (e.g. nutrients). The pathway regulates the flagellated rotary motors and hence the cells' swimming behaviour, steering…
Inputs to signaling pathways can have complex statistics that depend on the environment and on the behavioral response to previous stimuli. Such behavioral feedback is particularly important in navigation. Successful navigation relies on…
Living systems contain intricate biochemical networks whose structure is closely related to their function and allows them to exhibit robust behavior in the presence of external stimuli. Such networks typically involve catalytic enzymes,…
Collective migration of eukaryotic cells is often guided by chemotaxis, and is critical in several biological processes, such as cancer metastasis, wound healing, and embryogenesis. Understanding collective chemotaxis has challenged…
Microorganisms often perform chemotaxis, (i.e., sensing and moving toward a region with a higher concentration of an attractive chemical) by changing the rate of tumbling for random walk. We studied several models with internal adaptive…
Eukaryotic cells generally sense chemical gradients using the binding of chemical ligands to membrane receptors. In order to perform chemotaxis effectively in different environments, cells need to adapt to different concentrations. We…
Bacteria are often exposed to multiple stimuli in complex environments, and their efficient chemotactic decisions are critical to survive and grow in their native environments. Bacterial responses to the environmental stimuli depend on the…
In biological cells and novel diagnostic devices biochemical receptors need to be sensitive to extremely small concentration changes of signaling molecules. The accuracy of such molecular signaling is ultimately limited by the counting…
Flagellated bacteria, such as Escherichia coli, perform directed motion in gradients of concentration of attractants and repellents in a process called chemotaxis. The E. coli chemotaxis signaling pathway is a model for signal transduction,…
When a single cell senses a chemical gradient and chemotaxes, stochastic receptor-ligand binding can be a fundamental limit to the cell's accuracy. For clusters of cells responding to gradients, however, there is a critical difference: even…
The proper functioning of multicellular organisms requires the robust establishment of precise proportions between distinct cell-types. This developmental differentiation process typically involves intracellular regulatory and stochastic…
As a response to ligand binding, transmembrane cell receptors often enhance their clustering, or oligomerization, during the signalling process. Here we present a statistical mechanical model which combines the aspects of clustering and…