Veranstaltungsort: FIAS Lecture Hall 0.100

Unsere nächste Ausgabe der "CMMS Talks" findet am Donnerstag, 12.12.2024 um 14.00 Uhr in 0.100 statt. Sprechen wird Dr. Nils Becker.

Der Vortrag wird in englischer Sprache gehalten, daher sind die folgenden Informationen ebenfalls Englisch. 

Abstract:

I will present two studies that attempt to identify optimal design of biological function. The first investigates the molecular design of cytokine receptor systems. Inflammatory signaling is mediated by a set of type-I interferons (IFNs). Although different IFNs share one receptor complex (IFNAR), they are found to elicit different cellular responses, and so appear to signal different messages. We scrutinize the particular heterodimeric architecture of IFNAR, and find that compared to monomeric or homodimeric receptors, this architecture is optimized for digital signalling, encoding ligand type but buffering against uncontrollable ligand concentration fluctuations. The second study addresses schizogony, the reproduction of the malaria parasite Plasmodium within red blood cells. In schizogony, nuclei replicate in a common cytoplasm to produce ~20 offspring over ~12h. Time-lapse fluorescence microscopy shows that DNA replication in different nuclei is coupled but strongly asynchronous. We formulate a biophysical model of nuclear cycle regulation in which DNA replication machinery acts as a crucial limiting resource. We show that time-sharing of resource between nuclei can be tuned to optimize the speed of nuclear replication. We argue that Plasmodium falciparum takes advantage of this effect to increase its reproduction rate.

CMMS Project