title: Ubiquity of log-normal distributions in intra-cellular reaction dynamics.
abstract: The discovery of two fundamental laws concerning cellular dynamics with recursive growth is reported. Firstly, the chemical abundances measured over many cells were found to obey a log-normal distribution and secondly, the relationship between the average and standard deviation of the abundances was found to be linear. The ubiquity of these laws was explored both theoretically and experimentally. By means of a model with a catalytic reaction network, the laws were shown to exist near a critical state with efficient self-reproduction. Additionally, by measuring distributions of fluorescent proteins in bacteria cells, the ubiquity of log-normal distribution of protein abundances was confirmed. Relevance of these findings to cellular function and biological plasticity is briefly discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioinformatics Engineering, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Osaka University, 2-1 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan; ERATO Complex Systems Biology Project, JST, 3-8-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8902, Japan.
authors.forename: Chikara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Furusawa
authors.affiliation: Department of Biotechnology, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, 2-1 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.
authors.forename: Takao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Suzuki
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioinformatics Engineering, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Osaka University, 2-1 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.
authors.forename: Akiko
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kashiwagi
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioinformatics Engineering, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Osaka University, 2-1 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan; ERATO Complex Systems Biology Project, JST, 3-8-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8902, Japan.
authors.forename: Tetsuya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yomo
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University, 1-3 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan; ERATO Complex Systems Biology Project, JST, 3-8-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8902, Japan.
authors.forename: Kunihiko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kaneko
keywords: fluctuation; log-normal distribution; recursive growth