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Updated: Feb 7, 2026
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The Use of Chemostats in Microbial Systems Biology
Published on: October 14, 2013
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Strong disorder leads to scale invariance in complex biological systems
Stella Stylianidou1, Thomas J Lampo2, Andrew J Spakowitz2
1Departments Physics, Bioengineering and Microbiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA.
Physical Review. E
|July 18, 2018
Summary
Bacterial complex dynamics exhibit scale invariance, a property emerging from diffusion on disordered energy landscapes. Extreme value theory explains this scale invariance, offering insights into biological systems.
Area of Science:
- Cellular dynamics
- Statistical physics in biology
Background:
- Biological systems often display scale-invariant behavior despite cellular complexity.
- Large complexes in bacterial cytoplasm show scale-invariant dynamics in their movement.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate the physical mechanisms behind emergent scale invariance in bacterial complex dynamics.
- Model mobility as diffusion on a 1D rough free-energy landscape.
Main Methods:
- Analyzing mean-squared displacement (MSD), velocity autocorrelation, and step-size distribution.
- Exploring minimal models in the strong disorder limit.
- Applying extreme-value theory (EVT) to understand scale invariance.
Main Results:
- Scale-invariant characteristics emerge generically in the strong disorder limit.
- Scale invariance of step-size distribution is explained by EVT.
- Gumbel scale parameter relates directly to MSD scaling parameter.
Conclusions:
- Strong disorder and EVT provide a physical mechanism for emergent scale invariance in biological systems.
- The findings offer a powerful analytical tool for disordered systems in biology and beyond.
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