Related papers: Precision of flow sensing by self-communicating ce…
Autologous chemotaxis, in which cells secrete and detect molecules to determine the direction of fluid flow, is thwarted at high cell density because molecules from other cells interfere with a given cell's signal. Using a minimal model of…
Cells need to reliably sense external ligand concentrations to achieve various biological functions such as chemotaxis or signaling. The molecular recognition of ligands by surface receptors is degenerate in many systems leading to…
Many types of cells can sense external ligand concentrations with cell-surface receptors at extremely high accuracy. Interestingly, ligand-bound receptors are often internalized, a process also known as receptor-mediated endocytosis. While…
Cells use surface receptors to estimate the concentration of external ligands. Limits on the accuracy of such estimations have been well studied for pairs of ligand and receptor species. However, the environment typically contains many…
The spread of metastases is a crucial process in which some questions remain unanswered. In this work, we focus on tumor cells circulating in the bloodstream, the so-called Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs). Our aim is to characterize their…
We investigate single-cell directional sensing from diffusing chemoattractant signals released by a localized source. We focus on the low-concentration regime in which receptor activity is discrete and cellular decisions are made on…
Chemotactic cells of eukaryotic organisms are able to accurately sense shallow chemical concentration gradients using cell-surface receptors. This sensing ability is remarkable as cells must be able to spatially resolve small fractional…
The physical limit with which a cell senses external ligand concentration corresponds to the perfect absorber, where all ligand particles are absorbed and overcounting of same ligand particles does not occur. Here we analyze how the lateral…
How cells reliably infer information about their environment is a fundamentally important question. While sensing and signaling generally start with cell-surface receptors, the degree of accuracy with which a cell can measure external…
Immunoaffinity-based liquid biopsies of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) hold great promise for cancer management, but typically suffer from low throughput, relative complexity and post-processing limitations. Here we address these issues…
Metastasis is a process of cell migration that can be collective and guided by chemical cues. Viewing metastasis in this way, as a physical phenomenon, allows one to draw upon insights from other studies of collective sensing and migration…
Biological cells are able to accurately sense chemicals with receptors at their surfaces, allowing cells to move towards sources of attractant and away from sources of repellent. The accuracy of sensing chemical concentration is ultimately…
In biological cells and novel diagnostic devices biochemical receptors need to be sensitive to extremely small concentration changes of signaling molecules. The accuracy of such molecular signaling is ultimately limited by the counting…
Flow cytometry is a technique that measures multiple fluorescence and light scatter-associated parameters from individual cells as they flow a single file through an excitation light source. These cells are labeled with antibodies to detect…
The precision of concentration sensing is improved when cells communicate. Here we derive the physical limits to concentration sensing for cells that communicate over short distances by directly exchanging small molecules (juxtacrine…
Many types of cells are able to accurately sense shallow gradients of chemicals across their diameters, allowing the cells to move towards or away from chemical sources. This chemotactic ability relies on the remarkable capacity of cells to…
We present cytometric classification of live healthy and cancer cells by using the spatial morphological and textural information found in the label-free quantitative phase images of the cells. We compare both healthy cells to primary tumor…
Cells adapt to changing environments by sensing ligand concentrations using specific receptors. The accuracy of sensing is ultimately limited by the finite number of ligand molecules bound by receptors. Previously derived physical limits to…
Cells, other than their biological properties, have different electric and physical properties. In an impedance cytometer, cells should pass one by one in the detection region where pairs of electrodes are located. When cells are located…
The entropy production rate of cancer cell is always higher than healthy cell under the case of no external field applied. Different entropy production between two kinds of cells determines the direction of entropy flow among cells. The…