Related papers: Potential for modulation of the hydrophobic effect…
Active stresses in biological cells and tissues drive many developmental processes. However, increasing experimental evidence suggests that additional mechanical interactions with surrounding material can play a crucial role in guiding…
We report that protein confinement within nanoscopic vesicular compartments corresponds to a liquid-liquid phase transition with the protein/water within vesicle lumen interacting very differently than in bulk. We show this effect leads to…
Inspired by recent experimental observations of a harmonically excited elastic foil hovering near a wall while supporting substantial weight, we develop a theoretical framework that describes the underlying physical effects. Using…
Previous kinetic models had assumed that the reaction medium was reacting at random and without a turnover associated to thermodynamics exchanges, with a rigid active site on the enzyme. The experimental studies show that coupling factor 1…
The depletion interaction mediated by non-adsorbing polymers promotes condensation and assembly of repulsive colloidal particles into diverse higher-order structures and materials. One example, with particularly rich emergent behaviors, is…
Fish schools are ubiquitous in marine life. Although flow interactions are thought to be beneficial for schooling, their exact effects on the speed, energetics, and stability of the group remain elusive. Recent experiments suggest that flow…
We investigate the emergence of global alignment in colonies of dividing rod-shaped cells under confinement. Using molecular dynamics simulations and continuous modeling, we demonstrate that geometrical anisotropies in the confining…
A weakly charged flexible polyelectrolyte chain in a neutral spherical cavity is analyzed using self-consistent field theory (SCFT) within an explicit solvent model. Assuming the radial symmetry for the system, it is found that the…
Two dimensional active fluids display a transition from turbulent to coherent flow upon decreasing the size of the confining geometry. A recent experiment suggests that the behavior in three dimensions is remarkably different; emergent…
The free motion of charged colloids within ionic solutions and in the vicinity of charged boundaries, is a phenomenon that occurs in various natural, biological and industrial settings. Here, we develop an electrohydrodynamic lubrication…
Biomolecular condensates play a crucial role in the spatial organization of living matter. These membrane-less organelles, resulting from liquid-liquid phase separation, operate far from thermodynamic equilibrium, with their size and…
Over the years, advances in experimental and computational methods have helped us to understand the role of thermodynamic, kinetic and active (chaperone-aided) effects in coordinating the folding steps required to achieving a knotted native…
Using Langevin dynamics simulations, we investigate the dynamics of chaperone-assisted translocation of a flexible polymer through a nanopore. We find that increasing the binding energy $\epsilon$ between the chaperone and the chain and the…
The strength of hydrogen bonding in water is stronger than that of van der waals interaction, therefore water may play an important role in the process of hydrophobic effects. When a hydrophobic solute is dissolved into water, an interface…
External fields can decidedly alter the free energy landscape of soft materials and can be exploited as a powerful tool for the assembly of targeted nanostructures and colloidal materials. Here, we use computer simulations to demonstrate…
Hydrodynamic behavior at the vicinity of a confining wall is closely related to the friction properties of the liquid/solid interface. Here we consider, using Molecular Dynamics simulations, the electric contribution to friction for charged…
We propose a novel mechanism of cell motility, which relies on the coupling of actin polymerization at the cell membrane to geometric confinement. We consider a polymerizing viscoelastic cytoskeletal gel confined in a narrow channel, and…
Hydrodynamics is known to have strong effects on the kinetics of phase separation. There exist open questions on how such effects manifest in systems under confinement. Here, we have undertaken extensive studies of the kinetics of phase…
Experiments and computer simulations demonstrate that water spontaneously fills the hydrophobic cavity of a carbon nanotube. To gain a quantitative thermody- namic understanding of this phenomenon, we use the recently developed Two Phase…
The motion involved in barrier crossing for protein folding are investigated in terms of the chain dynamics of the polymer backbone, completing the microscopic description of protein folding presented in the previous paper. Local reaction…