Related papers: Kinetic regulation of coated vesicle secretion
Eukaryotic cells intrinsically change their shape, by changing the composition of their membrane and by restructuring their underlying cytoskeleton. We present here further studies and extensions of a minimal physical model, describing a…
In cells and in vitro assays the number of motor proteins involved in biological transport processes is far from being unlimited. The cytoskeletal binding sites are in contact with the same finite reservoir of motors (either the cytosol or…
The folding pathway and rate coefficients of the folding of a knotted protein are calculated for a potential energy function with minimal energetic frustration. A kinetic transition network is constructed using the discrete path sampling…
We study the coupling between the structural dynamics and rheological response of charged colloidal monolayers at water/oil interfaces, driven into steady shear by a microdisk rotating at a controlled angular velocity. The flow causes…
Adhesion-independent migration is a prominent mode of cell motility in confined environments, yet the physical principles that guide such movement remain incompletely understood. We present a phase-field model for simulating the motility of…
We study the dynamics of a carrier, which performs a biased motion under the influence of an external field E, in an environment which is modeled by dynamic percolation and created by hard-core particles. The particles move randomly on a…
Suspensions of swimming micro-organisms provide examples of coordinated active dynamics. That has stimulated the study of a phenomenological theory combining synchronization and polar order in active matter. Here, we consider another…
A tethered vesicle, which consists of a cylindrical membrane tube and a spherical vesicle, is produced by a mechanical force that is experimentally imposed by optical tweezers and a micropipette. This tethered vesicle is employed for…
Intracellular transport of vesicular cargos, organelles, and other macromolecules is an essential process to move large items through a crowded, and inhomogeneous cellular environment. In an effort to dissect the fundamental effects of…
Drying of fluids undergoing sol-gel transition in porous media, a process crucial for the consolidation of damaged porous structures in cultural heritage, often leads to skin formation at the surface. This phenomenon significantly hinders…
We study active surface wetting using a minimal model of bacteria that takes into account the intrinsic motility diversity of living matter. A mixture of "fast" and "slow" self-propelled Brownian particles is considered in the presence of a…
We study the dynamics of a model of membrane vesicle transport into dendritic spines, which are bulbous intracellular compartments in neurons driven by molecular motors. We reduce the lubrication model proposed in [Fai et al., Active…
Protein conformational changes are activated processes essential for protein functions. Activation in a protein differs from activation in a small molecule in that it involves directed and systematic energy flows through preferred channels…
How internal forces are transduced into motion through soft, fluid membranes remains a fundamental question in the study of active systems. To investigate this coupling, we develop a minimal system consisting of a single ferromagnetic…
Cells coexist together in colonies or as tissues. Their behaviour is controlled by an interplay between intercellular forces and biochemical regulation. We develop a simple model of the cell cycle, the fundamental regulatory network…
The processes that determine the establishment of the complex morphology of neurons during development are still poorly understood. We present experiments that use live imaging to examine the role of vesicle transport and propose a…
We develop coarse-grained models that describe the dynamic encapsidation of functionalized nanoparticles by viral capsid proteins. We find that some forms of cooperative interactions between protein subunits and nanoparticles can…
Dynamics of a single vesicle under shear flow between two parallel plates is studied using two-dimensional lattice-Boltzmann simulations. We first present how we adapted the lattice-Boltzmann method to simulate vesicle dynamics, using an…
Migratory and tissue resident cells exhibit highly branched morphologies to perform their function and to adapt to the microenvironment. Immune cells, for example, display transient branched shapes while exploring the surrounding tissues.…
It is frequent for active or living entities to find themselves embedded in a surrounding medium. Resulting composite systems are usually classified as either active fluids or active solids. Yet, in reality, particularly in the biological…