Related papers: Optimal segregation of proteins: phase transitions…
Many unicellular organisms allocate their key proteins asymmetrically between the mother and daughter cells, especially in a stressed environment. A recent theoretical model is able to predict when the asymmetry in segregation of key…
We consider a class of biologically-motivated stochastic processes in which a unicellular organism divides its resources (volume or damaged proteins, in particular) symmetrically or asymmetrically between its progeny. Assuming the final…
Understanding the emergence and evolution of multicellularity and cellular differentiation is a core problem in biology. We develop a quantitative model that shows that a multicellular form emerges from genetically identical unicellular…
The evolutionary biology of aging is fundamental to understanding the mechanisms of aging and how to develop anti-aging treatments. Thus far most evolutionary theory concerns the genetics of aging with limited physiological integration.…
Which factors govern the evolution of mutation rates and emergence of species? Here, we address this question using a first principles model of life where population dynamics of asexual organisms is coupled to molecular properties and…
Cycling tissues such as the intestinal epithelium, germ line, and hair follicles, require a constant flux of differentiated cells. These tissues are maintained by a population of stem cells, which generate differentiated progenies and…
Traditionally, it has been held that a central characteristic of stem cells is their ability to divide asymmetrically. Recent advances in inducible genetic labeling provided ample evidence that symmetric stem cell divisions play an…
In order to fulfill cell proliferation and differentiation through cellular hierarchy, stem cells can undergo either asymmetric or symmetric divisions. Recent studies pay special attention to the effect of different modes of stem cell…
Recent studies have shown that even in the absence of extrinsic stress, the morphologically symmetrically dividing model bacteria Escherichia coli do not generate offspring with equal reproductive fitness. Instead, daughter cells exhibit…
One of the major characteristics of living organisms is metabolic rate, which is the amount of energy produced per unit of time. When the mass of organisms increases, the metabolic rate also increases (usually as a power function of mass),…
In evolutionary algorithms, the fitness of a population increases with time by mutating and recombining individuals and by a biased selection of more fit individuals. The right selection pressure is critical in ensuring sufficient…
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…
Adaptation of asexual populations is driven by beneficial mutations and therefore the dynamics of this process, besides other factors, depend on the distribution of beneficial fitness effects. It is known that on uncorrelated fitness…
Experiments in recent years have vividly demonstrated that gene expression can be highly stochastic. How protein concentration fluctuations affect the growth rate of a population of cells, is, however, a wide open question. We present a…
In evolutionary algorithms, the fitness of a population increases with time by mutating and recombining individuals and by a biased selection of more fit individuals. The right selection pressure is critical in ensuring sufficient…
A computational revolution unleashed the power of artificial neural networks. At the heart of that revolution is automatic differentiation, which calculates the derivative of a performance measure relative to a large number of parameters.…
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,…
We investigate the effect of spatial range expansions on the evolution of fitness when beneficial and deleterious mutations co-segregate. We perform individual-based simulations of a uniform linear habitat and complement them with…
Spatial heterogeneity is a hallmark of living systems, even at the molecular scale in individual cells. A key example is the partitioning of membrane-bound proteins via lipid domain formation or cytoskeleton-induced corralling. Yet the…
A fundamental issue discussed in evolutionary biology is the transition from unicellular to multicellular organisms. Here we develop non-robust models provided in [1] and attempt to get robust models investigated how differentiation of…