Related papers: Cellular resource allocation strategies for cell s…

Open cellular solids usually possess random microstructures that may contain a characteristic length scale, such as the cell size. This gives rise to size dependent mechanical properties where large systems behave differently from small…

Models of transcriptional regulation that assume equilibrium binding of transcription factors have been very successful at predicting gene expression from sequence in bacteria. However, analogous equilibrium models do not perform as well in…

The mechanism by which cells measure the dimension of the organ in which they are embedded, and slow down their growth when the final size is reached, is a long-standing problem of developmental biology. The role of mechanics in this…

Understanding design principles of complex cellular organization is one of the major challenges in biology. Recent analysis of the large-scale cellular organization has revealed the scale-free nature and robustness of metabolic and protein…

In stable environments, cell size fluctuations are thought to be governed by simple physical principles, as suggested by recent findings of scaling properties. Here, by developing a microfluidic device and using E. coli, we investigate the…

How cells maintain a stable size has fascinated scientists since the beginning of modern biology, but has remained largely mysterious. Recently, however, the ability to analyze single bacteria in real time has provided new, important…

Exchange of biochemical substances is essential way in establishing communication between bacterial cells. It is noticeable that all phases of the process are heavily influenced by perturbations of either internal or external parameters.…

In nature, microorganisms must often cope with hostile environmental conditions. To do so they have developed sophisticated cooperative behavior and intricate communication capabilities, such as: direct cell-cell physical interactions via…

We investigate the dynamics of a colony of crawling, proliferating cells with a minimal, mechanical cell model. The cells consist of two disks, modelling the cell body and a pseudopod, connected by a finite extensible spring. The cells…

We present a modelling framework for the dynamics of cells structured by the concentration of a micromolecule they contain. We derive general equations for the evolution of the cell population and of the extra-cellular concentration of the…

Biological systems excel at building spatial structures on scales ranging from nanometers to kilometers and exhibit temporal patterning from milliseconds to years. One approach that nature has taken to accomplish this relies on the…

Mechanical interactions among cells in a growing microbial colony can significantly influence the colony's spatial genetic structure and, thus, evolutionary outcomes such as the fates of rare mutations. Here, we computationally investigate…

How morphogenesis depends on cell properties is an active direction of research. Here, we focus on mechanical models of growing plant tissues, where microscopic (sub)cellular structure is taken into account. In order to establish links…

Morphological trends in growing colonies of living cells are at the core of physiological and evolutionary processes. Using active gel equations, which include cell division, we show that shape changes during the growth can be regulated by…

Micropatterned substrates are often used to standardize cell experiments and to quantitatively study the relation between cell shape and function. Moreover, they are increasingly used in combination with traction force microscopy on soft…

In order to survive, reproduce and (in multicellular organisms) differentiate, cells must control the concentrations of the myriad different proteins that are encoded in the genome. The precision of this control is limited by the inevitable…

An important question in biology is how the relative size of different organs is kept nearly constant during growth of an animal. This property, called proportionate growth, has received increased attention in recent years. We discuss our…

A simulation approach to the stochastic growth of bacterial towers is presented, in which a non-uniform and finite nutrient supply essentially determines the emerging structure through elementary chemotaxis. The method is based on cellular…

Organelles of optimum size are crucial for proper functioning of a living cell. The cell employs various mechanisms for actively sensing and controlling the size of its organelles. Recently Bauer et al have opened a new research frontier in…

Heterogeneous systems of active matter exhibit a range of complex emergent dynamical patterns. In particular, it is difficult to predict the properties of the mixed system based on its constituents. These considerations are particularly…