Regensburg 2004 – scientific programme

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DY: Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 24: Dynamic Instabilities in Biophysics

DY 24.1: Invited Talk

Tuesday, March 9, 2004, 14:30–15:00, H2

Physical Aspects of Cell Division — •Karsten Kruse — Max Planck Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme, Nöthnitzer Str. 38, 01187 Dresden

Cell division is one of the truly fundamental processes in biology and consists of a highly controlled sequence of dynamic events. However, essential features of some of these events can be understood as emerging from dynamic instabilities. Two systems will be presented to illustrate this point. In the bacterium Escherichia coli, division occurs at the cell’s center. Selection of the division site relies on pole-to-pole oscillations of the proteins MinC, MinD, and MinE. In animal cells, division often occurs off the center. Asymmetric division is achieved by displacing the mitotic spindle, a bipolar structure of filamentous proteins. This displacement is accompanied by oscillations of the spindle poles. For both systems, the oscillations will be shown to result from dynamical instabilities. These examples suggest, that self-organization is an essential principle underlying cell division.