Related papers: Codon Bias and Mutability in HIV Sequences
The opportunistic fungal pathogen Candida albicans causes serious hematogenic hospital acquired candidiasis with worldwide impact on public health. Because of its importance as a nosocomial etiologic agent, C. albicans genome has been…
The percentage and sequence of AT and GC base pairs and charges on the DNA backbone contribute significantly to the stiffness of DNA. This elastic property of DNA also changes with small interacting ligands. The single-molecule force…
We propose a physical model to describe the mechanisms of two major scenarios of the genetic code evolution, the codon capture and ambiguous intermediate scenarios, in a consistent manner. We sketch the lowest dimensional version of our…
Although DNA is often bent in vivo, it is unclear how DNA-bending forces modulate DNA-protein binding affinity. Here, we report how a range of DNA-bending forces modulates the binding of the Integration Host Factor (IHF) protein to various…
Vector-borne diseases often infect multiple host species, increasing the likelihood of disease persistence due to the presence of multiple reservoirs. Vector biting patterns and feeding preferences can shift in response to selective…
We have developed a mathematical model for in-host virus dynamics that includes spatial chemotaxis and diffusion across a two dimensional surface representing the vaginal or rectal epithelium at primary HIV infection. A linear stability…
A previous report claimed no evidence of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance in a mouse model of in utero environmental exposure, based on the observation that gene expression changes observed in the germ cells of G1 and G2 male fetus…
We consider the basic model of virus dynamics in the modeling of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), in a 2D heterogenous environment. It consists of two ODEs for the non-infected and infected $CD_4^+$ $T$ lymphocytes, $T$ and $I$, and a…
Most animals have separate sexes. The differential expression of gene products, in particular that of gene regulators, is underlying sexual dimorphism. Analyses of sex-biased expression have focused mostly in protein coding genes. Several…
The ability of a protein to recognise multiple independent target conformations was demonstrated in [1]. Here we consider the recognition of correlated configurations, which we apply to funnel design for a single conformation. The maximum…
This survey for mathematicians summarizes several works by the author on protein geometry and protein function with applications to viral glycoproteins in general and the spike glycoprotein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in particular. Background…
Random mixing in host populations has been a convenient simplifying assumption in the study of epidemics, but neglects important differences in contact rates within and between population groups. For HIV/AIDS, the assumption of random…
Background: High HIV transmission persists in many U.S. jurisdictions despite prevention efforts. HIV self-testing offers a means to overcome barriers associated with routine laboratory-based testing but carries a risk of increasing…
We consider a spatially-heterogeneous generalization of a well-established model for the dynamics of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus-type 1 (HIV) within a susceptible host. The model consists of a nonlinear system of three coupled…
A problem of substantial interest is to systematically map variation in chromatin structure to gene expression regulation across conditions, environments, or differentiated cell types. We developed and applied a quantitative framework for…
It has been proposed that the degeneracy of the genetic code,i.e., the phenomenon that different codons (base triplets) of DNA are transcribed into the same amino acid, may be interpreted as the result of a symmetry breaking process. In the…
Horizontal gene transfer is an important factor in bacterial evolution that can act across species boundaries. Yet, we know little about rate and genomic targets of cross-lineage gene transfer, and about its effects on the recipient…
A mechanism of sympatric speciation is presented based on the interaction-induced developmental plasticity of phenotypes. First, phenotypes of individuals with identical genotypes split into a few groups, according to instability in the…
We introduce the simple parametrization for the space of codons (triples of nucleotides) by 8\times 8 table. This table (which we call the dyadic plane) possesses the natural 2-adic ultrametric. We show that after this parametrization the…
We use a cellular automata model to study the evolution of HIV infection and the onset of AIDS. The model takes into account the global features of the immune response to any pathogen, the fast mutation rate of the HIV and a fair amount of…