Citation

Ramanathan S, Swain PS. 2005. Tracing the sources of cellular variation. Developmental cell. 9(5):576-8. Pubmed: 16256732

Abstract

As the adage says, variety is the spice of life, and despite our best attempts, cells, even those with the same genome, never seem to behave the same. By combining mathematical and experimental analyses, Colman-Lerner and colleagues propose, in a recent issue of Nature, a method to delicately unravel the sources of this variation. Applying their technique to the pheromone response in budding yeast, they show that much of the observed variation originates from cell cycle effects and is dependent on levels of pathway input.

Related Faculty

Photo of Sharad Ramanathan

Sharad Ramanathan investigates how multi-potent stem cells make fate decisions to give rise to complex human tissues, and how the dynamics of key neurons in the nervous system drive behavioral decisions.

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