Mathematics in Molecular Cell Biology

 Topics

      Lipid membranes of cells and subcellular organelles contain specialized proteins to regulate the transmembrane transport of substances. These proteins include 'ion channels', whose most important function is the electrical signalling in nerve and muscle cells.

Ion channels are remarkable for their high selectivity for certain physiological ions. For instance, Ca channels prefer Ca ions more than thousandfold over Na ions and thus manage to 'find' their ions among a hundredfold physiological excess of extracellular Na ions. These properties are not well understood, yet, and are subject to intensive modelling efforts.

     The migration of cells is essential to life, as a primary feature of developmental and repair processes. It also contributes to disease states, such as in the dissemination of malignant cells during metastasis. It is known that cell motility relies on the dynamic formation and reorganisation of actin filaments that form the "actin cytoskeleton". Far less is known about how these dynamic processes are driven and controlled. The continuous reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton in response to environmental signals is pivotal in motile activities of the cell. From a modelling point of view it is necessary to describe the complex interaction of chemical and mechanical effects.

     Aspects of the chemical function of complex biomolecules such as proteins can be illuminated by molecular dynamics simulations, shedding light on their dynamical properties.