亚细胞过程
Telomeres, the nucleoprotein complexes at the termini of linear chromosomes, are essential for the processes of end replication, end-protection, and chromatin segregation. The Mre11 complex is involved in multiple cellular roles in DNA…
All living systems can function only far away from equilibrium, and for this reason chemical kinetic methods are critically important for uncovering the mechanisms of biological processes. Here we present a new theoretical method of…
Mutations in the MTM1 gene, encoding the phosphoinositide phosphatase myotubularin, are responsible for the X-linked centronuclear myopathy (XLCNM) or X-linked myotubular myopathy (XLMTM). The MTM1 gene was first identified in 1996 and its…
We introduce a two-species exclusion model to describe the key features of the conflict between the RNA polymerase (RNAP) motor traffic, engaged in the transcription of a segment of DNA, concomitant with the progress of two DNA replication…
Mitochondria of brown adipocyte (BA) are the main intracellular sites for thermogenesis, which have been targeted for therapy to reduce obesity. However, there are long-standing critique and debates about the ability of raising cellular…
During the asymmetric division of the Caenorhabditis elegans nematode zygote, the polarity cues distribution and daughter cell fates depend on the correct positioning of the mitotic spindle, which results from both centering and cortical…
A classical example of a mathematical model for oscillations in a biological system is the Selkov oscillator, which is a simple description of glycolysis. It is a system of two ordinary differential equations which, when expressed in…
PEBPs (PhosphatidylEthanolamine Binding Proteins) form a protein family widely present in the living world since they are encountered in microorganisms, plants and animals. In all organisms PEBPs appear to regulate important mechanisms that…
Cell division site positioning is precisely regulated to generate correctly sized and shaped daughters. We uncover a novel strategy to position the FtsZ cytokinetic ring at midcell in the social bacterium Myxococcus xanthus. PomX, PomY and…
As a cheap and safe antimalarial agent, chloroquine (CQ) has been used in the battle against malaria for more than half century. However, the mechanism of CQ action and resistance in Plasmodium falciparum remains elusive. Based on further…
Till now, in biological sciences, the term, transcription, mainly refers to DNA to RNA transcription. But our recently published experimental findings obtained from Plasmodium falciparum strongly suggest the existence of DNA to DNA…
Astrocytes express a large variety of G~protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) which mediate the transduction of extracellular signals into intracellular calcium responses. This transduction is provided by a complex network of biochemical…
Actin filaments are critical components of the eukaryotic cytoskeleton, playing important roles in a number of cellular functions, such as cell migration, organelle transport, and mechanosensation. They are helical polymers with a…
In early development, regulation of transcription results in precisely positioned and highly reproducible expression patterns that specify cellular identities. How transcription, a fundamentally noisy molecular process, is regulated to…
Kinetic theory and thermodynamics are applied to DNA polymerases with exonuclease activity, taking into account the dependence of the rates on the previously incorportated nucleotide. The replication fidelity is shown to increase…
A kinetic theory is developed for exonuclease-deficient DNA polymerases, based on the experimental observation that the rates depend not only on the newly incorporated nucleotide, but also on the previous one, leading to the growth of…
Mechanoelectrical transduction in the inner ear is a biophysical process underlying the senses of hearing and balance. The key players involved in this process are mechanosensitive ion channels. They are located in the stereocilia of hair…
Transmembrane receptor clustering is a ubiquitous phenomenon in pro- and eukaryotic cells to physically sense receptor/ligand interactions and subsequently translate an exogenous signal into a cellular response. Despite that receptor…
Many cellular processes are tightly connected to the dynamics of microtubules (MTs). While in neuronal axons MTs mainly regulate intracellular trafficking, they participate in cytoskeleton reorganization in many other eukaryotic cells,…
The cellular cytoskeleton is an active material, driven out of equilibrium by molecular motor proteins. It is not understood how the collective behaviors of cytoskeletal networks emerge from the properties of the network's constituent motor…