Related papers: Epigenetics: What it is about?
The hierarchical organisation of cell identity is a fundamental feature of animal development with rich and well-characterized experimental phenomenology, yet the mechanisms driving its emergence remain unknown. The regulation of cell…
Genetic regulatory networks enable cells to respond to the changes in internal and external conditions by dynamically coordinating their gene expression profiles. Our ability to make quantitative measurements in these biochemical circuits…
Advances in science are being sought in newly available opportunities to collect massive quantities of data about complex systems. While key advances are being made in detailed mapping of systems, how to relate this data to solving many of…
A review of the mechanisms of speciation is performed. The mechanisms of the evolution of species, taking into account the feedback of the state of the environment and mechanisms of the emergence of complexity, are considered. It is shown…
We propose a physical model for developmental process at cellular level to discuss the mechanism of epigenetic landscape. In our simplified model, a minimal model, the network of the interaction among cells generates the landscape…
A central goal of evolutionary biology is to explain the origins and distribution of diversity across life. Beyond species or genetic diversity, we also observe diversity in the circuits (genetic or otherwise) underlying complex functional…
How much information does a cell inherit from its ancestors beyond its genetic sequence? What are the epigenetic mechanisms that allow this? Despite the rise in available epigenetic data, how such information is inherited through the cell…
The discipline of `theoretical biology' has been developing from its inception several decades ago almost in parallel with the advances in biology, so much so that the latter is often considered to be almost exclusively an empirical…
Astrobiology has been gaining increasing scientific prominence and public attention as the search for life beyond Earth continues to make significant headway on multiple fronts. In view of these recent developments, the fascinating and…
All living cells interact dynamically with a constantly changing world. Eukaryotes in particular, evolved radically new ways to sense and react to their environment. These advances enabled new and more complex forms of cellular behavior in…
The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) is beginning to fulfill the whole promise of Darwinian insight through its extension of evolutionary understanding from the biological domain to include cultural information evolution. Several…
The question of why we age is a fundamental one. It is about who we are, and it also might have critical practical aspects as we try to find ways to age slower. Or to not age at all. Different reasons point at distinct strategies for the…
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…
Molecular phenotypes are important links between genomic information and organismic functions, fitness, and evolution. Complex phenotypes, which are also called quantitative traits, often depend on multiple genomic loci. Their evolution…
Even when concepts similar to emergence have been used since antiquity, we lack an agreed definition. However, emergence has been identified as one of the main features of complex systems. Most would agree on the statement ``life is…
Biases in molecular evolution can significantly influence evolutionary trajectories. They have been described in a variety of contexts such as development and mutation, but not for acquiring new functions (i.e. emergence). Here, we…
The language commonly used in human genetics can inadvertently pose problems for multiple reasons. Terms like "ancestry", "ethnicity", and other ways of grouping people can have complex, often poorly understood, or multiple meanings within…
At any moment in time, evolution is faced with a formidable challenge: refining the already highly optimised design of biological species, a feat accomplished through all preceding generations. In such a scenario, the impact of random…
The poly-tRNA model was recently presented for the origin and evolution of genetic coding. This model has led to a rather precise description of what might have occurred at the beginning of protein synthesis in the first life form. Here, we…
Many questions that we have about the history and dynamics of organisms have a geographical component: How many are there, and where do they live? How do they move and interbreed across the landscape? How were they moving a thousand years…