Related papers: Structural motifs of biomolecules
Biological membranes are known to form various structural motifs, from lipid bilayers to tubular filaments and networks facilitating e.g. adhesion and cell-cell communication. To understand the biophysical processes underpinning lipid-lipid…
Molecular motors are macromolecular complexes which use some form of input energy to perform mechanical work. The filamentary tracks, on which these motors move, are made of either proteins (e.g., microtubules) or nucleic acids (DNA or…
Biomembranes, primarily composed of lipid bilayers, are not merely passive barriers but dynamic and complex materials whose shapes are governed by the principles of soft matter physics. This review explores the shape problem in biomembranes…
Cellular membranes exhibit a large variety of shapes, strongly coupled to their function. Many biological processes involve dynamic reshaping of membranes, usually mediated by proteins. This interaction works both ways: while proteins…
Helical structures like alpha helices, DNA, and microtubules have profound importance in biology. It has been suggested that these periodic arrangements of constituent units could support collective excitations similarly to crystalline…
Inclusions dissolved in an anisotropic quasi-2D membrane acquire new types of interactions that can drive assembly of complex structures and patterns. We study colloidal membranes composed of a binary mixture of long and short rods, such…
The surface curvature of membranes, interfaces, and substrates plays a crucial role in shaping the self-assembly of particles adsorbed on these surfaces. However, little is known about the interplay between particle anisotropy and surface…
Bacterial cellulose biofilms are complex networks of strong interwoven nanofibers that control transport and protect bacterial colonies in the film. Design of diverse applications of bacterial cellulose films also relies on understanding…
We study two mechanisms for the formation of protein patterns near membranes of living cells by mathematical modelling. Self-assembly of protein domains by electrostatic lipid-protein interactions is contrasted with self-organization due to…
This article summarizes a variety of physical mechanisms proposed in the literature, which can generate micro- and nanodomains in multicomponent lipid bilayers and biomembranes. It mainly focusses on lipid-driven mechanisms that do not…
Metabolism displays striking and robust regularities in the forms of modularity and hierarchy, whose composition may be compactly described. This renders metabolic architecture comprehensible as a system, and suggests the order in which…
DNA nanotubes are tubular structures composed of DNA crossover molecules. We present a bottom up approach for construction and characterization of these structures. Various possible topologies of nanotubes are constructed such as 6-helix,…
Anisotropy at the level of the inter-particle interaction provides the particles with specific instructions for the self-assembly of target structures. The ability to synthesize non-spherical colloids, together with the possibility of…
Biomolecular motor proteins that generate forces by consuming chemical energy obtained from ATP hydrolysis are pivotal for organizing broad cytoskeletal structures in living cells. The control of such cytoskeletal structures benefits…
Biological systems exploit self-assembly to create complex structures whose arrangements are finely controlled from molecular to mesoscopic level. Herein we report an example of using fully synthetic systems that mimic two levels of…
The structure of a molecular liquid, in both the nematic liquid crystalline and isotropic phases, around a cylindrical macroparticle, is studied using density functional theory. In the nematic phase the structure of the fluid is highly…
Biomolecular condensates formed through the phase separation of proteins and nucleic acids are widely observed, offering a fundamental means of organizing intracellular materials in a membrane-less fashion. Traditionally, these condensates…
Interconnected ensembles of biological entities are perhaps some of the most complex systems that modern science has encountered so far. In particular, scientists have concentrated on understanding how the complexity of the interacting…
Identical objects, regularly assembled, form a helix, which is the principal motif of nucleic acids, proteins, and viral capsids.
In living cells, proteins self-assemble into large functional structures based on specific interactions between molecularly complex patches. Due to this complexity, protein self-assembly results from a competition between a large number of…