相关论文: On the physical basis of biological signaling by i…

Biological signaling is imagined as a combination of activation and transport. The former is triggered by local molecular interactions and the latter is the result of molecular diffusion. However, other fundamental physical principles of…

Local changes in pH are known to significantly alter the state and activity of proteins and in particular enzymes. pH variations induced by pulses propagating along soft interfaces (e.g. the lipid bilayer) would therefore constitute an…

Biological membranes by virtue of their elastic properties should be capable of propagating localized perturbations analogous to sound waves. However, the existence and the possible role of such waves in communication in biology remains…

The existence and propagation of acoustic pressure pulses on lipid monolayers at the air/water-interfaces are directly observed by simple mechanical detection. The pulses are excited by small amounts of solvents added to the monolayer from…

Electrical signals play the primary role in rapid communication among organs, tissues and cells in biosystems. We have analyzed and discussed three phenomena of electrical communication in biosystems, including direction-changing movement…

Mounting evidence shows that oscillatory activity is widespread in cell signaling. Here we review some of this recent evidence, focusing on both the molecular mechanisms that potentially underlie such dynamical behavior, and the potential…

In an ongoing debate on the physical nature of the action potential, one group adheres to the electrical model of Hodgkin and Huxley, while the other describes the action potential as a non-linear acoustic pulse propagating within an…

The action potential propagating in a nerve fibre generates accompanying mechanical and thermal effects. The whole signal is therefore an ensemble which includes primary and secondary components. The primary components of a signal are the…

Peripheral membrane proteins can reversibly and specifically bind to biological membranes to carry out functions such as cell signalling, enzymatic activity, or membrane remodelling. Structures of these proteins and of their lipid-binding…

Biological membranes mainly consist of lipids and proteins. While the proteins have many functions as single molecules, the membrane as a whole displays physical properties that cannot be explained on the single molecule level. For example,…

Composition is a powerful principle for systems biology, focused on the interfaces, interconnections, and orchestration of distributed processes to enable integrative multiscale simulations. Whereas traditional models focus on the structure…

Models that invoke nonlinear wavefront propagation in a chemically excitable medium are rife in the biological literature. Indeed, the idea that wavefront propagation can serve as a signaling mechanism has often been invoked to explain…

Molecular communication is a biologically-inspired method of communication with attractive properties for microscale and nanoscale devices. In molecular communication, messages are transmitted by releasing a pattern of molecules at a…

We identify a mechanism for biological spatial pattern formation arising when the signals that mediate interactions between individuals in a population have pulsed character. Our general population-signal framework shows that while for a…

Pulsatory activity patterns, driven by mechanochemical feedback, are prevalent in many biological systems. Here we present a theoretical framework to elucidate the mechanical origin and regulation of pulsatile activity patterns within…

Living systems relay information across membrane interfaces to coordinate compartment functions. We identify a physical mechanism for selective information transmission that arises from the sigmoidal response of surface-bound particle…

Arterial blood pressure is a key vital sign for the health of the human body. As such, accurate and reproducible measurement techniques are necessary for successful diagnosis. Blood pressure measurement is an example of molecular…

Mathematical models describing the signals propagating in nerve fibres are described. The emphasis is on the mathematical structures of governing equations while the extremely rich physiological aspects are here not analysed. Based on…

This paper presents a method for shaping the transmit pulse of a molecular signal such that the diffusion channel's response is a sharp pulse. The impulse response of a diffusion channel is typically characterised as having an infinitely…

An action potential is typically described as a purely electrical change that propagates along the membrane of excitable cells. However, recent experiments have demonstrated that non-linear acoustic pulses that propagate along lipid…