Related papers: Simple biological controllers drive the evolution …
All biological systems are subject to perturbations: due to thermal fluctuations, external environments, or mutations. Yet, while biological systems are composed of thousands of interacting components, recent high-throughput experiments…
One of the properties that make ecological systems so unique is the range of complex behavioural patterns that can be exhibited by even the simplest communities with only a few species. Much of this complexity is commonly attributed to…
Living systems evolve one mutation at a time, but a single mutation can alter the effect of subsequent mutations. The underlying mechanistic determinants of such epistasis are unclear. Here, we demonstrate that the physical dynamics of a…
The notion of homeostasis typically conceptualises biological and artificial systems as maintaining stability by resisting deviations caused by environmental and social perturbations. In contrast, (social) allostasis proposes that these…
Biological systems must be robust for stable function against perturbations, but robustness alone is not sufficient. The ability to switch between appropriate states (phenotypes) in response to different conditions is essential for…
A macroscopic theory for describing cellular states during steady-growth is presented, which is based on the consistency between cellular growth and molecular replication, as well as the robustness of phenotypes against perturbations.…
Life systems are complex and hierarchical, with diverse components at different scales, yet they sustain themselves, grow, and evolve over time. How can a theory of such complex biological states be developed? Here we note that for a…
Organisms maintain the status quo, holding key physiological variables constant to within an acceptable tolerance, and yet adapt with precision and plasticity to dynamic changes in externalities. What organizational principles ensure such…
A variety of physical, social and biological systems generate complex fluctuations with correlations across multiple time scales. In physiologic systems, these long-range correlations are altered with disease and aging. Such correlated…
Understanding computational capabilities of simple biological circuits, such as the regulatory circuits of single-cell organisms, remains an active area of research. Recent theoretical work has shown that a simple regulatory architecture…
Different subsystems of organisms adapt over many time scales, such as rapid changes in the nervous system (learning), slower morphological and neurological change over the lifetime of the organism (postnatal development), and change over…
Cells within living soft biological tissues seem to promote the maintenance of a mechanical state within a defined range near a so-called set-point. This mechanobiological process is often referred to as mechanical homeostasis. During this…
Plasticity-led evolution is a form of evolution where a change in the environment induces novel traits via phenotypic plasticity, after which the novel traits are genetically accommodated over generations under the novel environment. This…
Living soft tissues appear to promote the development and maintenance of a preferred mechanical state within a defined tolerance around a so-called set-point. This phenomenon is often referred to as mechanical homeostasis. In contradiction…
What features characterise complex system dynamics? Power laws and scale invariance of fluctuations are often taken as the hallmarks of complexity, drawing on analogies with equilibrium critical phenomena[1-3]. Here we argue that slow,…
Biological functions are generated as a result of developmental dynamics that form phenotypes governed by genotypes. The dynamical system for development is shaped through genetic evolution following natural selection based on the fitness…
Possibility to establish macroscopic phenomenological theory for biological systems, akin to the akin to the well-established framework of thermodynamics, is briefly reviewed. We introduce the concept of an evolutionary fluctuation-response…
Diverse biological networks exhibit universal features distinguished from those of random networks, calling much attention to their origins and implications. Here we propose a minimal evolution model of Boolean regulatory networks, which…
Biological evolution of a population is governed by the fitness landscape, which is a map from genotype to fitness. However, a fitness landscape depends on the organisms environment, and evolution in changing environments is still poorly…
Biologists and physicists have a rich tradition of modeling living systems with simple models composed of a few interacting components. Despite the remarkable success of this approach, it remains unclear how to use such finely tuned models…