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Article Dans Une Revue Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology Année : 2016

The biological default state of cell proliferation with variation and motility, a fundamental principle for a theory of organisms

Résumé

The principle of inertia is central to the modern scientific revolution. By postulating this principle Galileo at once identified a pertinent physical observable (momentum) and a conservation law (momentum conservation). He then could scientifically analyze what modifies inertial movement: gravitation and friction. Inertia, the default state in mechanics, represented a major theoretical commitment: there is no need to explain uniform rectilinear motion, rather, there is a need to explain departures from it. By analogy, we propose a biological default state of proliferation with variation and motility. From this theoretical commitment, what requires explanation is proliferative quiescence, lack of variation, lack of movement. That proliferation is the default state is axiomatic for biologists studying unicellular organisms. Moreover, it is implied in Darwin's " descent with modification ". Although a " default state " is a theoretical construct and a limit case that does not need to be instantiated, conditions that closely resemble unrestrained cell proliferation are readily obtained experimentally. We will illustrate theoretical and experimental consequences of applying and of ignoring this principle.
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Dates et versions

hal-01413495 , version 1 (09-12-2016)
hal-01413495 , version 2 (30-01-2017)

Licence

Paternité - Pas d'utilisation commerciale - Pas de modification

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Ana Soto, Giuseppe Longo, Maël Montévil, Carlos Sonnenschein. The biological default state of cell proliferation with variation and motility, a fundamental principle for a theory of organisms. Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, 2016, From the Century of the Genome to the Century of the Organism: New Theoretical Approaches, 122 (1), pp.16 - 23. ⟨10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2016.06.006⟩. ⟨hal-01413495v2⟩
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