352,608 research outputs found
An Introduction to Rule-based Modeling of Immune Receptor Signaling
Cells process external and internal signals through chemical interactions.
Cells that constitute the immune system (e.g., antigen presenting cell, T-cell,
B-cell, mast cell) can have different functions (e.g., adaptive memory,
inflammatory response) depending on the type and number of receptor molecules
on the cell surface and the specific intracellular signaling pathways activated
by those receptors. Explicitly modeling and simulating kinetic interactions
between molecules allows us to pose questions about the dynamics of a signaling
network under various conditions. However, the application of chemical kinetics
to biochemical signaling systems has been limited by the complexity of the
systems under consideration. Rule-based modeling (BioNetGen, Kappa, Simmune,
PySB) is an approach to address this complexity. In this chapter, by
application to the FcRI receptor system, we will explore the
origins of complexity in macromolecular interactions, show how rule-based
modeling can be used to address complexity, and demonstrate how to build a
model in the BioNetGen framework. Open source BioNetGen software and
documentation are available at http://bionetgen.org.Comment: 5 figure
Plasmonic atoms and plasmonic molecules
The proposed paradigm of plasmonic atoms and plasmonic molecules allows one
to describe and predict the strongly localized plasmonic oscillations in the
clusters of nanoparticles and some other nanostructures in uniform way.
Strongly localized plasmonic molecules near the contacting surfaces might
become the fundamental elements (by analogy with Lego bricks) for a
construction of fully integrated opto-electronic nanodevices of any complexity
and scale of integration.Comment: 30 pages, 16 figure
Stochastic noise reduction upon complexification: positively correlated birth-death type systems
Cell systems consist of a huge number of various molecules that display
specific patterns of interactions, which have a determining influence on the
cell's functioning. In general, such complexity is seen to increase with the
complexity of the organism, with a concomitant increase of the accuracy and
specificity of the cellular processes. The question thus arises how the
complexification of systems - modeled here by simple interacting birth-death
type processes - can lead to a reduction of the noise - described by the
variance of the number of molecules. To gain understanding of this issue, we
investigated the difference between a single system containing molecules that
are produced and degraded, and the same system - with the same average number
of molecules - connected to a buffer. We modeled these systems using Ito
stochastic differential equations in discrete time, as they allow
straightforward analytical developments. In general, when the molecules in the
system and the buffer are positively correlated, the variance on the number of
molecules in the system is found to decrease compared to the equivalent system
without a buffer. Only buffers that are too noisy by themselves tend to
increase the noise in the main system. We tested this result on two model
cases, in which the system and the buffer contain proteins in their active and
inactive state, or protein monomers and homodimers. We found that in the second
test case, where the interconversion terms are non-linear in the number of
molecules, the noise reduction is much more pronounced; it reaches up to 20%
reduction of the Fano factor with the parameter values tested in numerical
simulations on an unperturbed birth-death model. We extended our analysis to
two arbitrary interconnected systems.Comment: 38 pages, 5 figures, to appear in J. Theor. Bio
Exploring molecular complexity in the Galactic Center with ALMA
The search for complex organic molecules (COMs) in the ISM has revealed
chemical species of ever greater complexity. This search relies heavily on the
progress made in the laboratory to characterize the rotational spectra of these
molecules. Observationally, the advent of ALMA with its high angular resolution
and sensitivity has allowed to reduce the spectral confusion and detect
low-abundance molecules that could not be probed before. We present results of
the EMoCA survey conducted with ALMA toward the star-forming region Sgr B2(N).
This spectral line survey aims at deciphering the molecular content of Sgr
B2(N) in order to test the predictions of astrochemical models and gain insight
into the chemical processes at work in the ISM. We report on the tentative
detection of N-methylformamide, on deuterated COMs, and on the detection of a
branched alkyl molecule. Prospects for probing molecular complexity in the ISM
even further are discussed at the end.Comment: Invited contribution to appear in "Astrochemistry VII -- Through the
Cosmos from Galaxies to Planets", proceedings of the IAU Symposium No. 332,
2017, Puerto Varas, Chile. M. Cunningham, T. Millar and Y. Aikawa, eds. (12
pages, 8 figures
Fast and Accurate Modeling of Molecular Atomization Energies with Machine Learning
We introduce a machine learning model to predict atomization energies of a
diverse set of organic molecules, based on nuclear charges and atomic positions
only. The problem of solving the molecular Schr\"odinger equation is mapped
onto a non-linear statistical regression problem of reduced complexity.
Regression models are trained on and compared to atomization energies computed
with hybrid density-functional theory. Cross-validation over more than seven
thousand small organic molecules yields a mean absolute error of ~10 kcal/mol.
Applicability is demonstrated for the prediction of molecular atomization
potential energy curves
Non-Duality
Self – organizing is closely connected to the phenomenon of life. The creation of complexity, which is necessary for the creation of life, is connected to the process of storing information in molecules of which the living cell is constituted. All living systems, either unicellular or multicellular organisms, are extremely complex systems compared to all the other species of the non living matter that exist in the Universe. Complexity is the result of effect processes, leading to systems with great organization, containing large information stocks. This organization of the molecules of a living organism, a result of accumulation of information, is what makes them able to produce useful work. The useful work involves both the fulfillment of basic biological processes, such as metabolism and reproduction, and the further increase in the information content that builds up in living systems. This last process is subject to the great chain of evolution of biological systems, this development is governed by the law of natural selection. The capability of reproduction, mutation and metabolism are necessary conditions for the latter
A Novel A Priori Simulation Algorithm for Absorbing Receivers in Diffusion-Based Molecular Communication Systems
A novel a priori Monte Carlo (APMC) algorithm is proposed to accurately
simulate the molecules absorbed at spherical receiver(s) with low computational
complexity in diffusion-based molecular communication (MC) systems. It is
demonstrated that the APMC algorithm achieves high simulation efficiency since
by using this algorithm, the fraction of molecules absorbed for a relatively
large time step length precisely matches the analytical result. Therefore, the
APMC algorithm overcomes the shortcoming of the existing refined Monte Carlo
(RMC) algorithm which enables accurate simulation for a relatively small time
step length only. Moreover, for the RMC algorithm, an expression is proposed to
quickly predict the simulation accuracy as a function of the time step length
and system parameters, which facilitates the choice of simulation time step for
a given system. Furthermore, a rejection threshold is proposed for both the RMC
and APMC algorithms to significantly save computational complexity while
causing an extremely small loss in accuracy.Comment: 11 pages, 14 figures, submitted to IEEE Transactions on
NanoBioscience. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1803.0463
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