UCI
School of Biological Sciences
Developmental and Cell Biology

Tau-Mu Yi

Tau-Mu Yi, PhD

Tau-Mu Yi, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor

3302 Nat Sci I
University of California Irvine
Irvine, CA 92697

Lab Tel: (949) 824-4977
Office Tel: (949) 824-4888
Email: tmy@uci.edu
Website: Lab Homepage

G-protein signalling; Systems biology - We are a systems biology lab interested in the quantitative description of G-protein signaling and cell polarization, and the analysis of the robustness of biological networks.

faculty-yi-1.gifHow do cells reliably project and move in the correct direction? It is a challenging task given the inherent external and internal uncertainties. In the budding yeast, S. cerevisiae, haploid cells polarize and project toward their mating partner in response to peptide mating pheromones. The well-characterized signal transduction network mediating this behavior involves both heterotrimeric and small G-protein signaling with many features conserved in higher eukaryotes. The goal of this research is to demonstrate how the carefully controlled dynamics of G-protein signaling are essential for robust cell polarization. The approach is to use a combination of quantitative experiments and mathematical modeling.

Why are living systems so complicated? The simple answer is that much of this complexity arises from the control structures necessary to ensure robustness. We wish to characterize the regulation of biological networks using control theory.

Recent Publications

  • Andrews, B.W., Yi, T.-M., and Iglesias, P.A. (2006). Optimal noise filtering in the chemotactic response of E. coli. PLoS Comp. Biol. 2, 1407 - 1418.
  • Ingalls, B.P., Yi, T.-M., and Iglesias, P.A. (2006). Using control theory to study biology. In: System Modeling in Cellular Biology: From Concepts to Nuts and Bolts, eds. Z. Szallasi, J. Stelling, and V. Periwal, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
  • Yi, T.-M., Andrews, B.W., and Iglesias, P.A. (2007a). Control analysis of bacterial chemotaxis signaling. Methods in Enzymology 422, 123 - 140.
  • Yi, T.-M., Chen, S., Chou, C.-S., and Nie, Q. (2007b). Modeling yeast cell polarization induced by pheromone gradients. J. Stat. Phys. 128, 193 - 207.
  • Yi, T.-M., Kitano, H., and Simon, M.I. (2003). A quantitative characterization of the yeast heterotrimeric G protein cycle. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 100, 10764-10769.