Nonequilibrium Statistical Mechanics of Dividing Cell Populations

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Penn collection
Department of Physics Papers
Degree type
Discipline
Subject
Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Physics
Funder
Grant number
License
Copyright date
Distributor
Related resources
Author
Brenner, Naama
Shokef, Yair
Contributor
Abstract

We present and study a model for the nonequilibrium statistical mechanics of protein distributions in a proliferating cell population. Our model describes how the total protein variation is shaped by two processes: variation in protein production internal to the cells and variation in division and inheritance at the population level. It enables us to assess the contribution of each of these components separately. We find that, even if production is deterministic, cell division can generate a large variation in protein distribution. In this limit we solve exactly a special case and draw an analogy between protein distribution along cell generations and stress distribution in layers of granular material. At the other limit of extremely noisy protein production, we find that the population structure restrains variation and that the details of division do not affect the tail of the distribution.

Advisor
Date Range for Data Collection (Start Date)
Date Range for Data Collection (End Date)
Digital Object Identifier
Series name and number
Publication date
2007-09-27
Journal title
Volume number
Issue number
Publisher
Publisher DOI
Journal Issue
Comments
Suggested Citation: Brenner, N. and Shokef, Y. (2007). Nonequilibrium Statistical Mechanics of Dividing Cell Populations. Physical Review Letters. 99, 138102. © 2007 The American Physical Society. http://dx.doi.org/PhysRevLett.99.138102
Recommended citation
Collection