Related papers: Connecting the dots between mechanosensitive chann…
Mechanosensitive (MS) channels are ion channels which act as cells' safety valves, opening when the osmotic pressure becomes too high and making cells avoid damage by releasing ions. They are found on the cellular membrane of a large number…
The mechanosensitive channel of large conductance, which serves as a model system for mechanosensitive channels, has previously been crystallized in the closed form, but not in the open form. Ensemble measurements and electrophysiological…
For ion channel gating, the appearance of two distinct conformational states and the discrete transitions between them is essential, and therefore of crucial importance to all living organisms. We show that the physical interplay between…
In this paper, we examine the mechanical role of the lipid bilayer in ion channel conformation and function with specific reference to the case of the mechanosensitive channel of large conductance (MscL). In a recent paper (Wiggins and…
Bacterial motility, and in particular repulsion or attraction towards specific chemicals, has been a subject of investigation for over 100 years, resulting in detailed understanding of bacterial chemotaxis and the corresponding sensory…
Mechanical stresses stemming from environmental factors are a key determinant of cellular behavior and physiology. Yet, the role of self-induced biomechanical stresses in growing bacterial colonies has remained largely unexplored. Here, we…
The metabolic network plays a crucial role in regulating bacterial metabolism and growth, but it is subject to inherent molecular stochasticity. Previous studies have utilized flux balance analysis and the maximum entropy method to predict…
Mechanosensation is a key part of the sensory repertoire of a vast array of different cells and organisms. The molecular dissection of the origins of mechanosensation is rapidly advancing as a result of both structural and functional…
Protein mechanosensitive channels (MS) are activated by tension transmitted through the lipid bilayer. We propose a theory of lateral stress relaxation in a bilayer lipid membrane exposed to external pressure pulse in the patch-clamp…
Many eukaryotic cells are able to perform directional mechanosensing by directly measuring minute spatial differences in the mechanical stress on their membranes. Here, we explore the limits of a single mechanosensitive channel activation…
Possible mechanisms of overlimiting current in unsupported electrolytes, exceeding diffusion limitation, have been intensely studied for their fundamental significance and applications to desalination, separations, sensing, and energy…
Spatial constraints such as rigid barriers affect the dynamics of cell populations, potentially altering the course of natural evolution. In this paper, we investigate the population genetics of Escherichia coli proliferating in…
In a mesoscopic conductor electric resistance is detected even if the device is defect-free. We engineer and study a cold-atom analog of a mesoscopic conductor. It consists of a narrow channel connecting two macroscopic reservoirs of…
Robustness and sensitivity of responses generated by cell signaling networks has been associated with survival and evolvability of organisms. However, existing methods analyzing robustness and sensitivity of signaling networks ignore the…
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…
Adaptation of the chemotaxis sensory pathway of the bacterium Escherichia coli is integral for detecting chemicals over a wide range of background concentrations, ultimately allowing cells to swim towards sources of attractant and away from…
Complex biological systems are very robust to genetic and environmental changes at all levels of organization. Many biological functions of Escherichia coli metabolism can be sustained against single-gene or even multiple-gene mutations by…
The collision of two atoms is an intrinsic multi-channel (MC) problem as becomes especially obvious in the presence of Feshbach resonances. Due to its complexity, however, single-channel (SC) approximations, which reproduce the long-range…
Bacterial chemotactic sensing converts noisy chemical signals into running and tumbling. We analyze the static sensing limits of mixed Tar/Tsr chemoreceptor clusters in individual Escherichia coli cells using a heterogeneous…
Analytic estimates for the forces and free energy generated by bilayer deformation reveal a compelling and intuitive model for MscL channel gating analogous to the nucleation of a second phase. We argue that the competition between…