Related papers: Kinetic regulation of coated vesicle secretion
Cell spreading and motility on an adhesive substrate are driven by the active physical forces generated by the actin cytoskeleton. We have recently shown that coupling curved membrane complexes to protrusive forces, exerted by the actin…
The rheology of biological tissue is key to processes such as embryo development, wound healing and cancer metastasis. Vertex models of confluent tissue monolayers have uncovered a spontaneous liquid-solid transition tuned by cell shape;…
The actin cortex is a thin layer of actin, myosin, and actin binding proteins that underlies the membrane of most animal cells. It is highly dynamic and can undergo remodelling on time-scales of tens of seconds thanks to protein turnover…
Classical descriptions of enzyme kinetics ignore the physical nature of the intracellular environment. Main implicit assumptions behind such approaches are that reactions occur in compartment volumes which are large enough so that molecular…
The self-organization of proteins into enriched compartments and the formation of complex patterns are crucial processes for life on the cellular level. Liquid-liquid phase separation is one mechanism for forming such enriched compartments.…
Molecular dynamics simulations of folding in an off-lattice protein model reveal a nucleation scenario, in which a few well-defined contacts are formed with high probability in the transition state ensemble of conformations. Their…
Continuum models of active nematic gels have proved successful to describe a number of biological systems consisting of a population of rodlike motile subunits in a fluid environment. However, in order to get a thorough understanding of the…
Cells often migrate on curved surfaces inside the body, such as curved tissues, blood vessels or highly curved protrusions of other cells. Recent \textit{in-vitro} experiments provide clear evidence that motile cells are affected by the…
In many adult tissues, stem cells and differentiated cells are not homogeneously distributed : stem cells are arranged in periodic "niches", and differentiated cells are constantly produced and migrate out of these niches. In this article,…
In many biological systems, the movement of individual agents is commonly characterized as having multiple qualitatively distinct behaviors that arise from various biophysical states. This is true for vesicles in intracellular transport,…
Essentially all biology is active and dynamic. Biological entities autonomously sense, com- pute, and respond using energy-coupled ratchets that can produce force and do work. The cytoskeleton, along with its associated proteins and motors,…
The investigation of collective behaviour in dense assemblies of self-propelled active particles has been motivated by a wide range of biological phenomena. Of particular interest are dynamical transitions of cellular and sub-cellular…
We investigate dynamical coupling between water and amino acid side-chain residues in solvation dynamics by selecting residues often used as natural probes, namely tryptophan, tyrosine and histidine, located at different positions on…
Actin is one of the most studied cytoskeleton proteins showing a very rich span of structures. It can self-assemble actively into dynamical structures that govern the mechanical properties of the cell, its motility and its division.…
We apply a recently developed model of cytoskeletal force generation to study a cell intrinsic contractility, as well as its response to external loading. The model is based on a non-equilibrium thermodynamic treatment of the…
Recent observations of the growth of protein crystals have identified two different growth regimes. At low supersaturation, the surface of the crystal is smooth and increasing in size due to the nucleation of steps at defects and the…
Curved elastic shells can be fabricated through molding or by harnessing residual stresses. These shells often exhibit snap-through behavior and multistability when loaded. We present a unique way of fabricating curved elastic shells that…
Recent studies in mammalian hearts show that left ventricular wall thickening is an important mechanism for systolic ejection and that during contraction the cardiac muscle develops significant stresses in the muscular cross-fiber…
We present experimental results on the relaxation dynamics of vesicles subjected to a time-dependent elongation flow. We observed and characterized a new instability, which results in the formation of higher order modes of the vesicle shape…
Biological membranes typically contain a large number of different components dispersed in small concentrations in the main membrane phase, including proteins, sugars, and lipids of varying geometrical properties. Most of these components…