Related papers: The selfish ribosome
Recent work has shown an increasing interest in understanding the structure of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and how ribosomes are displayed on it. Here we present a model that explains a physical reason for why the cell creates different…
Templated copying is the central operation by which biology produces complex molecules. Cells copy sequence information from DNA to RNA and on into proteins, which are the molecules responsible for the function and regulation of cellular…
Elucidating the fitness measures optimized during the evolution of complex biological systems is a major challenge in evolutionary theory. We present experimental evidence and an analytical framework demonstrating how biochemical networks…
Abiotic emergence of ordered information stored in the form of RNA is an important unresolved problem concerning the origin of life. A polymer longer than 40--100 nucleotides is necessary to expect a self-replicating activity, but the…
Self-replication is a key aspect of biological life that has been largely overlooked in Artificial Intelligence systems. Here we describe how to build and train self-replicating neural networks. The network replicates itself by learning to…
Many of life's most fascinating phenomena emerge from interactions among many elements--many amino acids determine the structure of a single protein, many genes determine the fate of a cell, many neurons are involved in shaping our thoughts…
The ability of cells to undergo reversible shape changes is often crucial to their survival. For Red Blood Cells (RBCs), irreversible alteration of the cell shape and flexibility often causes anemia. Here we show theoretically that RBCs may…
We propose a simple mechanism for the self-replication of protocells. Our main hypothesis is that the amphiphilic molecules composing the membrane bilayer are synthesised inside the protocell through globally exothermic chemical reactions.…
Although species longevity is subject to a diverse range of selective forces, the mortality curves of a wide variety of organisms are rather similar. We argue that aging and its universal characteristics may have evolved by means of a…
Gene translation is the process in which intracellular macro-molecules, called ribosomes, decode genetic information in the mRNA chain into the corresponding proteins. Gene translation includes several steps. During the elongation step,…
Self-assembly is the autonomous organization of components into patterns or structures: an essential ingredient of biology and a desired route to complex organization. At equilibrium, the structure is encoded through specific interactions,…
The origin of life might be sparked by the polymerization of the first RNA molecules in Darwinian ponds during wet-dry cycles. The key life-building block ribose was found in carbonaceous chondrites. Its exogenous delivery onto the Hadean…
Objective: Brain is a fantastic organ that helps creature adapting to the environment. Network is the most essential structure of brain, but the capability of a simple network is still not very clear. In this study, we try to expound some…
Adaptive behavior is mainly the result of adaptive brains. We go a step beyond and claim that the brain does not only adapt to its surrounding reality but rather, it builds itself up to constructs its own reality. That is, rather than just…
A theoretical study of cell evolution is presented here. By using a toolbox containing an intracellular catalytic reaction network model and a mutation-selection process, four distinct phases of self-organization were unveiled. First, the…
The sequence of nucleotide bases occurring in an organism's DNA is often regarded as a codescript for its construction. However, information in a DNA sequence can only be regarded as a codescript relative to an operational biochemical…
The structure of the self-cleaving hairpin ribozyme is well characterized, and its folding has been examined in bulk and by single-molecule fluorescence, establishing the importance of cations, especially magnesium in the stability of the…
There is growing consensus among neuroscientists that neural circuits critical for survival are the result of genomic decompression processes. We introduce SynaptoGen, a novel computational framework--member of the Connectome Models…
Gene expression consists in the synthesis of proteins from the information encoded on DNA. One of the two main steps of gene expression is the translation of messenger RNA (mRNA) into polypeptide sequences of amino acids. Here, by taking…
Cell growth and gene expression, essential elements of all living systems, have long been the focus of biophysical interrogation. Advances in single-cell methods have invigorated theoretical studies into these processes. However, until…