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Damage segregation at fissioning may increase growth rates: a superprocess model
Steven N Evans1, David Steinsaltz
1Department of Statistics #3860, 367 Evans Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3860, USA. evans@stat.berkeley.edu
Theoretical Population Biology
|April 20, 2007
Summary
Organisms can pass damage to offspring to survive. Optimal population growth balances randomness in damage accumulation and segregation during cell division.
Area of Science:
- Evolutionary biology
- Mathematical modeling
- Cellular biology
Background:
- Organisms accumulate damage over time.
- Cellular damage can impact survival and reproduction.
- Damage inheritance mechanisms are crucial for organismal fitness.
Purpose of the Study:
- To model how organisms manage unrepairable damage during fission.
- To investigate the impact of damage segregation on population growth.
- To explore the relationship between damage accumulation randomness and segregation randomness.
Main Methods:
- Utilized the mathematical formalism of superprocesses.
- Developed analytically tractable models for damage effects.
- Analyzed general damage segregation mechanisms and their impact on rates.
Main Results:
- Randomness in damage segregation is equivalent to randomness in damage accumulation.
- Optimal population growth occurs at a specific, non-zero level of combined randomness.
- Sub-optimal growth results from too little or too much unequal damage division.
Conclusions:
- Organismal strategy of preferential damage bequeathal can purge damage.
- A balance of randomness in damage processes optimizes population growth.
- Findings connect to protozoan damage inheritance and theories of aging.
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