It has been said that the cell is the test tube of the twenty-first century. If so, the theoretical tools needed to quantitatively and predictively describe what goes on in such test tubes lag sorely behind the stunning experimental advances in biology seen in the decades since the molecular biology revolution began. Perhaps surprisingly, one of the theoretical tools that has been used with great success on problems ranging from how cells communicate with their environment and each other to the nature of the organization of proteins and lipids within the cell membrane is statistical mechanics. A knee-jerk reaction to the use of statistical mechanics in the description of cellular processes is that living organisms are so far from equilibrium that one has no business even thinking about it. But such reactions are probably too hasty given that there are many regimes in which, because of a separation of timescales, for example, such an approach can be a useful first step. In this article, we explore the power of statistical mechanical thinking in the biological setting, with special emphasis on cell signaling and regulation. We show how such models are used to make predictions and describe some recent experiments designed to test them. We also consider the limits of such models based on the relative timescales of the processes of interest.

中文翻译：

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拿破仑处于平衡状态。

据说该电池是二十一世纪的试管。如果是这样的话，定量和预测性描述这种试管中发生的事情所需的理论工具就远远落后于分子生物学革命开始以来几十年来所见的生物学惊人的实验进展。也许令人惊讶的是，从机制到细胞与环境之间的相互通信以及细胞膜内蛋白质和脂质的组织性质等问题上获得成功的理论工具之一是统计力学。在描述细胞过程时，对使用统计力学进行分析时产生了一个下意识的反应，那就是活生物离平衡还很远，以至于人们甚至都没有想过它。但是考虑到存在许多机制，例如由于时间尺度的分隔，这种方法可能太匆忙，因为这种方法可能是有用的第一步。在本文中，我们将探讨统计力学思维在生物学环境中的作用，并特别着重于细胞信号传导和调控。我们将展示如何使用这些模型进行预测，并描述一些旨在测试它们的最新实验。我们还根据关注过程的相对时间尺度来考虑此类模型的局限性。我们将展示如何使用这些模型进行预测，并描述一些旨在测试它们的最新实验。我们还根据关注过程的相对时间尺度来考虑此类模型的局限性。我们将展示如何使用这些模型进行预测，并描述一些旨在测试它们的最新实验。我们还根据关注过程的相对时间尺度来考虑此类模型的局限性。