The basic building blocks of nano-structured hierarchical cellular materials are nano-sized wires or plates. Due to the effects of surface elasticity and the initial stress/strain, their bending, torsion, stretching and transverse shear rigidities are not only size-dependent, but also tunable and controllable over a large range. Based on the closed form results of the bending, torsion, stretchi...

September 2006 | Volume 4 | Issue 9 | e299 One of the organizing principles of life on Earth is that cells cooperate. This is evident in the case of multicellular organisms, from nematodes to humans, but it also appears to apply widely among single-celled organisms such as bacteria, fungi, and amoeba. In many cases, the label “single-celled” applies to only part of the life cycle of these organ...

Population level metabolic rates are by definition the sum of the individual metabolic rates within a population. Several studies have used estimates of individual metabolic rates to scale up metabolic activity of individuals to populations or whole communities. However, for aquatic single-celled organisms, individual metabolic rate is related to percapita resource availability, and accounting ...

The single-celled cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) fiber provides an excellent model to investigate how human selection affects phenotypic evolution. To gain insight into the evolutionary genomics of cotton domestication, we conducted comparative transcriptome profiling of developing cotton fibers using RNA-Seq. Analysis of single-celled fiber transcriptomes from four wild and five domesticated acce...

BACKGROUND Mitochondria play essential roles in the life and death of almost all eukaryotic cells, ranging from single-celled to multi-cellular organisms that display tissue and developmental differentiation. As mitochondria only arose once in evolution, much can be learned from studying single celled model systems such as yeast and applying this knowledge to other organisms. However, two billi...

Predation was a powerful selective force promoting increased morphological complexity in a unicellular prey held in constant environmental conditions. The green alga, Chlorella vulgaris, is a well-studied eukaryote, which has retained its normal unicellular form in cultures in our laboratories for thousands of generations. For the experiments reported here, steady-state unicellular C. vulgaris ...

The discovery of a homolog of the retinoblastoma protein (Rb) in a single-celled eukaryote--the alga Chlamydomonas--promises new and surprising insights into Rb's function in cell-cycle regulation.

Name a single-celled eukaryote that boasts a small genome size, is easily cultivated in haploid form, for which a wide variety of molecular genetic tools are available, and that exhibits a simple, polarized secretory apparatus with a well-defined endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi that can serve as a model for understanding secretion. Got it? Now name a cell with all these attributes that contains...

In the last decade, research into the molecular determinants of aging has progressed rapidly and much of this progress can be attributed to studies in invertebrate eukaryotic model organisms. Of these, single-celled yeast is the least complicated and most amenable to genetic and molecular manipulations. Supporting the use of this organism for aging research, increasing evidence has accumulated ...

Future space missions and implementation of permanent bases on Moon and Mars will greatly depend on the availability of ambient air and sustainable food supply. Therefore, understanding the effects of altered gravity conditions on plant metabolism and growth is vital for space missions and extra-terrestrial human existence. In this mini-review we summarize how plant cells are thought to perceiv...