Modeling of kinetic processes in biological systems

Center For Information Technology

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

Assembly of clathrin coated vesicles. We studied the dynamics of the clathrin coated pit formation with the goal to rationalize the role of cargo in the vesicle formation. Channel-facilitated membrane transport. We worked on the theory that would allow one to analyze the data on blockage of Anthrax channel by multi-charged high-affinity toxin inhibitor, and extract the information about the blocker interaction with the channel. Ligand concentration measurements by cell surface receptors. We developed a general theory of the measurement process, which showed how the accuracy of the cell concentration measurements depends on the averaging time and the number of receptors on the cell surface. Morphogen gradient formation in the Drosophila Embryo. We generalized our theory of local accumulation time to the case of nonlinear kinetics of morphogen degradation, and established the relation between local accumulation time and the first-passage time of the morphogen molecules from the source to the observation point. Protein folding. We developed a theory that showed how the character of folding kinetics depends on the chain length of the protein. Transport in complex environment. Brownian dynamics simulations were used to study the dependence of the effective mobility and diffusion coefficient of a particle on the driving force in tubes of varying shape. Our results show that the dependence may be qualitatively different depending on the shapes of the tube and the entropic traps. Trapping by clusters of absorbing disks. We suggested a general approach to trapping by clusters of absorbing disks, which took into account completion of the disks for diffusing particles. Using the approach we obtained a general formula for the rate constant characterizing trapping by a cluster formed by identical disks, centers of which occupied neighboring sites of a triangular lattice.