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Symmetry
Special Issues
Evolution and Fluctuating Asymmetry: Genes, Biological Molecules and Public Health
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Evolution and Fluctuating Asymmetry: Genes, Biological Molecules and Public Health

A special issue of Symmetry (ISSN 2073-8994). This special issue belongs to the section "Life Sciences".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2022) | Viewed by 9867

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Abhijit Chakraborty

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA
Interests: cancer and cell biology; public health; epidemiology; immunology; structure biology; cardio-oncology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Faisal Aziz

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
The Hormel Institute, University of Minnesota, Austin, MN 55912, USA
Interests: inflammation and cancer biology; immunology and bacterial pathogenesis; mitochondrial metabolism; post-translational modification; dietary agents; drug discovery; protein structure biology; life-style and environmental cancer; risk factors
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

For decades, symmetry being a symbol of biology has gained scientific attention, which reflects the maintenance of individual morphological development under various environmental conditions. Questions such as ‘Does symmetry have a link with evolution?’ or ‘Can symmetry, DNA damage, and human diseases be linked together?’ are still controversial. For instance, asymmetry in human beings has been observed with temporal and spatial walking (Parkinson’s disease), retinitis pigmentosa, multiple sclerosis, cancer, and many other diseases. In addition, symmetry and asymmetry is widely observed in mammalian cells and aspects like cell division, chromosomal DNA replications, normal cell homeostasis, and importantly, structural symmetry exhibits the property of cancer hallmarks.

Fluctuating Asymmetry (FA), an index of developmental stability, measures an organism’s phenotype, genotype, and quality. The link between FA index, quality, and health is unrevealed. However, an unexplored link between symmetry and quality of life directly benefits the selection of healthy disease-free mates with improved health in offspring. Likewise, facial symmetry describes social communication, which is recognised by humans to infer current emotional states. Challenges in this research emphasizes numerous complex aspects of public health.

We envision public health as a society which ensures healthy individuals. Therefore, through this Special Issue “Evolution and Fluctuating Asymmetry: Genes, Biological Molecules and Public Health” we aim to highlight the relationship between improved human health, diseases, and symmetry.

We encourage contributions that are focused on, but not limited to, the following themes:

  • Asymmetric and symmetric division in hematologic malignancies, model organisms; solid cancers development and progression.
  • Address the theoretical and methodological challenges and opportunities that come with studying symmetry in development, growth and disease.
  • Share the best practices for engaging in public health research.
  • Processing and analysis of big data in healthcare.
  • The symmetry towards asymmetry of biological molecules.
  • A systematic evaluation Biological evolution.
  • Structural symmetry in membrane proteins related to human diseases.
  • DNA replication and cell division; Molecular mechanism in Cells and tissue; Stem cell research; systematic evaluation of DNA/RNA biology
  • Asymmetric and symmetric distribution in human diseases

Dr. Abhijit Chakraborty
Dr. Faisal Aziz
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Symmetry is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • bioinformatics
  • cell division
  • DNA
  • epidemiology
  • evolution
  • fluctuating asymmetry
  • functional genomics
  • human diseases
  • pathology
  • RNA
  • structural biology

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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12 pages, 3226 KiB  
Article
CGRAP: A Web Server for Coarse-Grained Rigidity Analysis of Proteins
by Alistair Turcan, Anna Zivkovic, Dylan Thompson, Lorraine Wong, Lauren Johnson and Filip Jagodzinski
Symmetry 2021, 13(12), 2401; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym13122401 - 12 Dec 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2353
Abstract
Elucidating protein rigidity offers insights about protein conformational changes. An understanding of protein motion can help speed drug development, and provide general insights into the dynamic behaviors of biomolecules. Existing rigidity analysis techniques employ fine-grained, all-atom modeling, which has a costly run-time, particularly [...] Read more.
Elucidating protein rigidity offers insights about protein conformational changes. An understanding of protein motion can help speed drug development, and provide general insights into the dynamic behaviors of biomolecules. Existing rigidity analysis techniques employ fine-grained, all-atom modeling, which has a costly run-time, particularly for proteins made up of more than 500 residues. In this work, we introduce coarse-grained rigidity analysis, and showcase that it provides flexibility information about a protein that is similar in accuracy to an all-atom modeling approach. We assess the accuracy of the coarse-grained method relative to an all-atom approach via a comparison metric that reasons about the largest rigid clusters of the two methods. The apparent symmetry between the all-atom and coarse-grained methods yields very similar results, but the coarse-grained method routinely exhibits 40% reduced run-times. The CGRAP web server outputs rigid cluster information, and provides data visualization capabilities, including a interactive protein visualizer. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Evolution and Fluctuating Asymmetry: Genes, Biological Molecules and Public Health)
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Review

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16 pages, 11048 KiB  
Review
Developmental Brain Asymmetry. The Good and the Bad Sides
by Monica Laura Cara, Ioana Streata, Ana Maria Buga and Dominic Gabriel Iliescu
Symmetry 2022, 14(1), 128; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym14010128 - 11 Jan 2022
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 5896
Abstract
Brain asymmetry is a hallmark of the human brain. Recent studies report a certain degree of abnormal asymmetry of brain lateralization between left and right brain hemispheres can be associated with many neuropsychiatric conditions. In this regard, some questions need answers. First, the [...] Read more.
Brain asymmetry is a hallmark of the human brain. Recent studies report a certain degree of abnormal asymmetry of brain lateralization between left and right brain hemispheres can be associated with many neuropsychiatric conditions. In this regard, some questions need answers. First, the accelerated brain asymmetry is programmed during the pre-natal period that can be called “accelerated brain decline clock”. Second, can we find the right biomarkers to predict these changes? Moreover, can we establish the dynamics of these changes in order to identify the right time window for proper interventions that can reverse or limit the neurological decline? To find answers to these questions, we performed a systematic online search for the last 10 years in databases using keywords. Conclusion: we need to establish the right in vitro model that meets human conditions as much as possible. New biomarkers are necessary to establish the “good” or the “bad” borders of brain asymmetry at the epigenetic and functional level as early as possible. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Evolution and Fluctuating Asymmetry: Genes, Biological Molecules and Public Health)
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