Related papers: Morphology and Interaction between Lipid Domains
Many ternary mixtures composed of saturated and unsaturated lipids with cholesterol (Chol) exhibit a region of coexistence between liquid-disordered $(L_d)$ and liquid-ordered $(L_o)$ domains, bearing some similarities to lipid rafts in…
In living cells, protein-rich condensates can wet the cell membrane and surfaces of membrane-bound organelles. Interestingly, many phase-separating proteins also bind to membranes leading to a molecular layer of bound molecules. Here we…
We present a continuum model trained on molecular dynamics (MD) simulations for cellular membranes composed of an arbitrary number of lipid types. The model is constructed within the formalism of dynamic density functional theory and can be…
Lipid bilayers forming biological membranes are known to behave as viscous 2D fluids on submicrometer scales; usually they contain a large number of active protein inclusions. Recently, it has been shown [Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 112,…
This review reports some key results in theoretical investigations on configurations of lipid membranes and presents several challenges in this field which involve (i) exact solutions to the shape equation of lipid vesicles; (ii) exact…
Chromatin is known to be organized into multiple domains of varying sizes and compaction. While these domains are often imagined as static structures, they are highly dynamic and show cell-to-cell variability. Since processes such as gene…
Using an interface displacement model derived from a microscopic density functional theory we investigate thin liquidlike wetting layers adsorbed on flat substrates with an embedded chemical heterogeneity forming a stripe. For a wide range…
During the development of an organism, cells must coordinate and organize to generate the correct shape, structure, and spatial patterns of tissues and organs, a process known as morphogenesis. The morphogenesis of embryonic tissues is…
Cell deformability is an essential determinant for tissue-scale mechanical nature, such as fluidity and rigidity, and is thus crucial for understanding tissue homeostasis and stable developmental processes. However, numerical simulations…
Morphogenesis emerges from dynamic feedback among geometry, mechanics, and chemistry; however, disentangling these contributions in living systems remains challenging. Here, we focus on the interplay between geometry and mechanics by…
Membrane particles such as proteins and lipids organize into zones that perform unique functions. Here, I introduce a topological and category-theoretic framework to represent particle and zone intra-scale interactions and inter-scale…
Biological membranes mainly consist of lipids and proteins. While the proteins have many functions as single molecules, the membrane as a whole displays physical properties that cannot be explained on the single molecule level. For example,…
Changes in the geometry and topology of self-assembled membranes underlie diverse processes across cellular biology and engineering. Similar to lipid bilayers, monolayer colloidal membranes have in-plane fluid-like dynamics and out-of-plane…
We introduce a novel model, comprising self-avoiding surfaces and incorporating edges and tubules, that is designed to characterize the structural morphologies and transitions observed within the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). By employing…
We propose a model that accounts for the budding transition of asymmetric two-component lipid domains, where the two monolayers (leaflets) have different average compositions controlled by independent chemical potentials. Assuming a…
Cholesterol (CHOL) drives lipid segregation and is thus a key player for the formation of lipid rafts and followingly for the ability of a cell to, e.g., enable selective agglomeration of proteins. The lipid segregation is driven by…
The inner mitochondrial membrane has been shown to have a novel structure that contains tubular components whose radii are on the order of 10 nm as well as comparatively flat regions. The structural organization of mitochondria is important…
This review reports some theoretical results on the Geometry of membranes. The governing equations to describe equilibrium configurations of lipid vesicles, lipid membranes with free edges, and chiral lipid membranes are derived from the…
From the perspective of physical properties, the cell membrane is an exotic two-dimensional material that has a dual nature: it exhibits characteristics of fluids, i.e., lipid molecules show lateral diffusion, while also demonstrating…
We develop methods for investigating protein drift-diffusion dynamics in heterogeneous cell membranes and the roles played by geometry, diffusion, chemical kinetics, and phase separation. Our hybrid stochastic numerical methods combine…