Related papers: Communication shapes sensory response in multicell…
By embedding inert tracer particles (TPs) in a growing multicellular spheroid the local stresses on the cancer cells (CCs) can be measured. In order for this technique to be effective the unknown effect of the dynamics of the TPs on the CCs…
We study a two-tier macrocell/femtocell system where the macrocell base station is equipped with multiple antennas and makes use of multiuser MIMO (spatial multiplexing), and the femtocells are "cognitive". In particular, we assume that the…
Recent years have witnessed an increasing interest in neuron-glia communication. This interest stems from the realization that glia participates in cognitive functions and information processing and is involved in many brain disorders and…
Epithelial cell monolayers expand on substrates by forming finger-like protrusions, created by leader cells, in the monolayer boundary. Information transmission and communication between individual entities in the cohesive collective lead…
A common feature of biological self-organization is how active agents communicate with each other or their environment via chemical signaling. Such communications, mediated by self-generated chemical gradients, have consequences for both…
The one-dimensional crawling movement of a cell is considered in this theoretical study. Our active gel model shows that for a cell with weakly mechanosensitive adhesion complexes, as myosin contractility increases, a cell starts to move at…
A protein undergoes conformational dynamics with multiple time scales, which results in fluctuating enzyme activities. Recent studies in single molecule enzymology have observe this "age-old" dynamic disorder phenomenon directly. However,…
Coordinated and cooperative motion of cells is essential for embryonic development, tissue morphogenesis, wound healing and cancer invasion. A predictive understanding of the emergent mechanical behaviors in collective cell motion is…
Short-term changes in efficacy have been postulated to enhance the ability of synapses to transmit information between neurons, and within neuronal networks. Even at the level of connections between single neurons, direct confirmation of…
Living cells sense their environment through the binding of extra-cellular molecular ligands to cell surface receptors. Puzzlingly, vast numbers of signaling pathways exhibit a high degree of cross talk between different signals whereby…
We examine the synchrony of the dynamics of localized [Ca^{2+}]_i oscillations in internal pool of astrocytes via diffusing coupling of a network of such cells in a certain topology where cytosolic Ca^{2+} and inositol 1,4,5-triphosphate…
Bacteria can form a great variety of spatially heterogeneous cell density patterns, ranging from simple concentric rings to dynamical spiral waves appearing in growing colonies. These pattern formation phenomena are important as they…
Intercellular signaling has an important role in organism development, but not all communication occurs using the same mechanism. Here, we analyze the energy efficiency of intercellular signaling by two canonical mechanisms: diffusion of…
The spontaneous generation of electrical activity underpins a number of essential physiological processes, and is observed even in tissues where specialized pacemaker cells have not been identified. The emergence of periodic oscillations in…
Active cell-junction remodeling is important for tissue morphogenesis, yet its underlying physics is not understood. We study a mechanical model that describes junctions as dynamic active force dipoles. Their instability can trigger cell…
Interactions between crawling cells, which are essential for many biological processes, can be quantified by measuring cell-cell collisions. Conventionally, experiments of cell-cell collisions are conducted on two-dimensional flat…
Living cells can enhance their fitness by anticipating environmental change. We study how accurately linear signaling networks in cells can predict future signals. We find that maximal predictive power results from a combination of…
Eukaryotic cells transmit information by signaling through complex networks of interacting proteins. Here we develop a theoretical and computational framework that relates the biophysics of protein-protein interactions (PPIs) within a…
Non-genetic heterogeneity is key to cellular decisions, as even genetically identical cells respond in very different ways to the same external stimulus, e.g., during cell differentiation or therapeutic treatment of disease. Strong…
The application of single-cell molecular profiling coupled with spatial technologies has enabled charting cellular heterogeneity in reference tissues and in disease. This new wave of molecular data has highlighted the expected diversity of…