相关论文: Lineage-specific transposons drove massive gene ex…
Gene expression is a central process to any form of life. It involves multiple temporal and functional scales that extend from specific protein-DNA interactions to the coordinated regulation of multiple genes in response to intracellular…
Cell fate decisions in multicellular organisms are precisely coordinated, leading to highly reproducible macroscopic outcomes of developmental processes. The origins of this reproducibility can be found at the molecular level during the…
Sex chromosomes have independently evolved in species with separate sexes in most lineages across the tree of life. However, the well-accepted canonical model of sex chromosome evolution is not universally supported. There is no single…
MicroRNAs are extensively known for post-transcriptional gene regulation and pattern formation in the embryonic developmental stage. We explore the origin of these spatio-temporal patterns mathematically, considering three different motifs…
Embryonic development is driven by spatial patterns of gene expression that determine the fate of each cell in the embryo. While gene expression is often highly erratic, embryonic development is usually exceedingly precise. In particular,…
We review models of biological evolution in which the population frequency changes deterministically with time. If the population is self-replicating, although the equations for simple prototypes can be linearised, nonlinear equations arise…
The evolution of various competing cell types in tissues, and the resulting persistent tissue population, is studied numerically and analytically in a particle-based model of active tissues. Mutations change the properties of cells in…
Biases in molecular evolution can significantly influence evolutionary trajectories. They have been described in a variety of contexts such as development and mutation, but not for acquiring new functions (i.e. emergence). Here, we…
A fundamental task in developmental biology is to identify the mechanisms which drive morphogenesis. In many cases, pattern formation is driven by the positional information determined by both the gradient of maternal factors and hard-wired…
The purpose of this roadmap article is to draw attention to a paradigm shift in our understanding of evolution towards a perspective of ecological-evolutionary feedback, highlighted through two recent highly simplified examples of rapid…
Cancer progression involves the sequential accumulation of genetic alterations that cumulatively shape the tumour phenotype. In prostate cancer, tumours can follow divergent evolutionary trajectories that lead to distinct subtypes, but the…
A central biological question is how natural organisms are so evolvable (capable of quickly adapting to new environments). A key driver of evolvability is the widespread modularity of biological networks--their organization as functional,…
The selection pressures that have shaped the evolution of complex traits in humans remain largely unknown, and in some contexts highly contentious, perhaps above all where they concern mean trait differences among groups. To date, the…
Consider a branching process with a homogeneous reproduction law. Sampling a single cell uniformly from the population at a time $T > 0$ and looking along the sampled cell's ancestral lineage, we find that the reproduction law is…
A central question in developmental biology is how size and position are determined. The genetic code carries instructions on how to control these properties in order to regulate the pattern and morphology of structures in the developing…
Initial residual stress is omnipresent in biological tissues and soft matter, and can affect growth-induced pattern selection significantly. Here we demonstrate this effect experimentally by letting soft tubes grow in the presence or…
Dispersal is a well recognized driver of ecological and evolutionary dynamics, and simultaneously an evolving trait. Dispersal evolution has traditionally been studied in single-species metapopulations so that it remains unclear how…
Meiotic recombination is a fundamental feature of sexually reproducing species. It is often required for proper chromosome segregation and plays important role in adaptation and the maintenance of genetic diversity. The molecular mechanisms…
A novel assay based on micropatterning and time-lapse microscopy has been developed for the study of nuclear migration dynamics in cultured mammalian cells. When cultured on 10-20 um wide adhesive stripes, the motility of C6 glioma and…
The metazoan body plan is established during early embryogenesis via collective cell rearrangements and evolutionarily conserved gene networks, as part of a process commonly referred to as gastrulation. While substantial progress has been…