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Living cell signaling systems include multistep biochemical signaling reaction cascades (BSCs) comprising modifications of molecular signaling proteins. Substantial data on BSCs have been accumulated in the field of molecular biology and…
The contact process is a simple infection spreading model showcasing an out-of-equilibrium phase transition between a macroscopically active and an inactive phase. Such absorbing state phase transitions are often sensitive to the presence…
Most sensory cells use surface receptors to detect environmental stimuli and initiate downstream signaling. Cooperative interactions among sensory receptors is known to play a crucial role in enhancing the sensitivity of biochemical…
Signal transduction within biological cells is governed by networks of interacting proteins. Communication between these proteins is mediated by signaling molecules which bind to receptors and induce stochastic transitions between different…
Cellular differentiation in a developping organism is studied via a discrete bistable reaction-diffusion model. A system of undifferentiated cells is allowed to receive an inductive signal emenating from its environment. Depending on the…
The work reported here aims to address the effects of time-dependent parameters and stochasticity on decision-making in biological systems. We achieve this by extending previous studies that resorted to simple normal forms. Yet, we focus…
Coordinated responses to environmental stimuli are critical for multicellular organisms. To overcome the obstacles of cell-to-cell heterogeneity and noisy signaling dynamics within individual cells, cells must effectively exchange…
Biological signaling is imagined as a combination of activation and transport. The former is triggered by local molecular interactions and the latter is the result of molecular diffusion. However, other fundamental physical principles of…
Understanding cell function requires an accurate description of how noise is transmitted through biochemical networks. We present an analytical result for the power spectrum of the output signal of a biochemical network that takes into…
Even in the steady-state, the number of biomolecules in living cells fluctuates dynamically; and the frequency spectrum of this chemical fluctuation carries valuable information about the mechanism and the dynamics of the intracellular…
Signal duration (e.g. the time scales over which an active signaling intermediate persists) is a key regulator of biological decisions in myriad contexts such as cell growth, proliferation, and developmental lineage commitments.…
Presented with sensory challenges, living cells employ extensive noisy, fluctuating signalling and communication among themselves to compute a physiologically proper response which often results in symmetry breaking. We propose, based on…
Living systems operate in a critical dynamical regime -- between order and chaos -- where they are both resilient to perturbation, and flexible enough to evolve. To characterize such critical dynamics, the established 'structural theory' of…
Cooperative interactions among the binding of multiple signaling molecules is a common mechanism for enhancing the sensitivity of biological signaling systems. It is widely assumed that this increase in sensitivity of the mean response…
Communication between cells is realized by exchange of biochemical substances. Due to internal organization of living systems and variability of external parameters, the exchange is heavily influenced by perturbations of various parameters…
In this letter we present the results of a simple model for intercellular communication via calcium oscillations, motivated in part by a recent experimental study. The model describes two cells (a "donor" and "sensor") whose intracellular…
Biological systems are known to communicate by diffusing chemical signals in the surrounding medium. However, most of the recent literature has neglected the electron transfer mechanism occurring amongst living cells, and its role in…
To maintain homeostasis, living cells process information with networks of interacting molecules. Traditional models for cellular information processing have focused on networks of chemical reactions between molecules. Here, we describe how…
In various biological systems information from many noisy molecular receptors must be integrated into a collective response. A striking example is the thermal imaging organ of pit vipers. Single nerve fibers in the organ reliably respond to…
Clustering of molecules on biological membranes is a widely observed phenomenon. In some cases, such as the clustering of Ras proteins on the membranes of mammalian cells, proper cell signaling is critically dependent on the maintenance of…