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The Dark Matter of Biology
The inside of the cell is full of important, yet invisible species of molecules and proteins that interact weakly but couple together to have huge and important effects in many biological processes. Such “dark matter” inside cells remains mostly hidden, because our tools were developed to investigat...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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The Biophysical Society
2016
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5018137/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27602719 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2016.07.037 |
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author | Ross, Jennifer L. |
author_facet | Ross, Jennifer L. |
author_sort | Ross, Jennifer L. |
collection | PubMed |
description | The inside of the cell is full of important, yet invisible species of molecules and proteins that interact weakly but couple together to have huge and important effects in many biological processes. Such “dark matter” inside cells remains mostly hidden, because our tools were developed to investigate strongly interacting species and folded proteins. Example dark-matter species include intrinsically disordered proteins, posttranslational states, ion species, and rare, transient, and weak interactions undetectable by biochemical assays. The dark matter of biology is likely to have multiple, vital roles to regulate signaling, rates of reactions, water structure and viscosity, crowding, and other cellular activities. We need to create new tools to image, detect, and understand these dark-matter species if we are to truly understand fundamental physical principles of biology. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5018137 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | The Biophysical Society |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-50181372017-09-06 The Dark Matter of Biology Ross, Jennifer L. Biophys J Biophysical Perspective The inside of the cell is full of important, yet invisible species of molecules and proteins that interact weakly but couple together to have huge and important effects in many biological processes. Such “dark matter” inside cells remains mostly hidden, because our tools were developed to investigate strongly interacting species and folded proteins. Example dark-matter species include intrinsically disordered proteins, posttranslational states, ion species, and rare, transient, and weak interactions undetectable by biochemical assays. The dark matter of biology is likely to have multiple, vital roles to regulate signaling, rates of reactions, water structure and viscosity, crowding, and other cellular activities. We need to create new tools to image, detect, and understand these dark-matter species if we are to truly understand fundamental physical principles of biology. The Biophysical Society 2016-09-06 2016-09-06 /pmc/articles/PMC5018137/ /pubmed/27602719 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2016.07.037 Text en © 2016 Biophysical Society. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Biophysical Perspective Ross, Jennifer L. The Dark Matter of Biology |
title | The Dark Matter of Biology |
title_full | The Dark Matter of Biology |
title_fullStr | The Dark Matter of Biology |
title_full_unstemmed | The Dark Matter of Biology |
title_short | The Dark Matter of Biology |
title_sort | dark matter of biology |
topic | Biophysical Perspective |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5018137/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27602719 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2016.07.037 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT rossjenniferl thedarkmatterofbiology AT rossjenniferl darkmatterofbiology |