Related papers: Accuracy of position determination in Ca$^{2+}$ si…
Galvanotaxis is believed to be driven by the redistribution of transmembrane proteins and other molecules, referred to as "sensors", through electrophoresis and electroosmosis. Here, we update our previous model of the limits of…
Contractile forces exerted on the surrounding extracellular matrix (ECM) lead to the alignment and stretching of constituent fibers within the vicinity of cells. As a consequence, the matrix reorganizes to form thick bundles of aligned…
Currently, biological signaling is envisaged as a combination of activation and movement, triggered by local molecular interactions and molecular diffusion, respectively. However, we here suggest, that other fundamental physical mechanisms…
During development, cell fates are determined through a combination of intracellular transcriptional regulations and extracellular signaling. As a result, spatial patterns of different cell types arise. We investigate the decision between…
Eukaryotic cells can polarize and migrate in response to electric fields via "galvanotaxis," which aids wound healing. Experimental evidence suggests cells sense electric fields via molecules on the cell's surface redistributing via…
Cells sense environmental signals and transmit information intracellularly through changes in the abundance of molecular components. Such molecular abundances can be measured in single cells and exhibit significant heterogeneity in clonal…
Eukaryotic cells are able to sense chemical gradients in a wide range of environments. We show that, if a cell is exposed to a highly variable environment, it may gain chemotactic accuracy by expressing multiple receptor types with varying…
Native membranes of biological cells display melting transitions of their lipids at a temperature of 10-20 degrees below body temperature. Such transitions can be observed in various bacterial cells, in nerves, in cancer cells, but also in…
We present a simple biophysical model for the coupling between synaptic transmission and the local calcium concentration on an enveloping astrocytic domain. This interaction enables the astrocyte to modulate the information flow from…
We mathematically modeled the receptor-activated MAP kinase signaling by incorporating the regulation through cellular phosphatases. Activation induced the alignment of a phosphatase cascade in parallel with the MAP kinase pathway. A novel…
Cells actively probe and respond to the stiffness of their surroundings. Since mechanosensory cells in connective tissue are surrounded by a disordered network of biopolymers, their in vivo mechanical environment can be extremely…
Cell signaling, gene expression, and metabolism are affected by cell-cell heterogeneity and random changes in the environment. The effects of such fluctuations on cell signaling and gene expression have recently been studied intensively…
The dual phosphorylation network provides an essential component of intracellular signaling, affecting the expression of phenotypes and cell metabolism. For particular choices of kinetic parameters, this system exhibits multistationarity, a…
Background: Using a statistical physics approach, we study the stochastic switching behavior of a model circuit of multisite phosphorylation and dephosphorylation with feedback. The circuit consists of a kinase and phosphatase acting on…
Living cells respond to mechanical changes in the matrix surrounding them by applying contractile forces that are in turn transmitted to distant cells. We calculate the mechanical work that each cell performs in order to deform the matrix,…
The phage $\lambda$ infection of an \textit{E. coli} cell has become a paradigm for understanding the molecular processes involved in gene expression and cell signaling. This system provides an example of a genetic switch, as cells with…
Many natural processes occur over characteristic spatial and temporal scales. This paper presents tools for (i) flexibly and scalably coarse-graining cellular automata and (ii) identifying which coarse-grainings express an automaton's…
Muscle uses Ca2+ as a messenger to control contraction and relies on ATP to maintain the intracellular Ca2+ homeostasis. Mitochondria are the major sub-cellular organelle of ATP production. With a negative inner membrane potential,…
We show that active transport processes in biological systems can be understood through a local equilibrium description formulated at the mesoscale, the scale to describe stochastic processes. This new approach uses the method established…
Cell membranes are studded with protrusions that were thoroughly analyzed with electron microscopy. However, the nanometer-scale three-dimensional motions generated by cell membranes to fit the topography of foreign surfaces and initiate…