Related papers: Colloidal Flying Carpets
The bacterial genome is organized in a structure called the nucleoid by a variety of associated proteins. These proteins can form complexes on DNA that play a central role in various biological processes, including chromosome segregation. A…
Molecular dynamics simulations are used to study the equilibrium distribution of monovalent ions in a nanopore connecting two water reservoirs separated by a membrane, both for the empty pore and that with a single stranded DNA molecule…
Under appropriate conditions, mixtures of cationic and neutral lipids and DNA in water condense into complexes in which DNA strands form local 2D smectic lattices intercalated between lipid bilayer membranes in a lamellar stack. These…
DNA nanotechnology uses predictable interactions of nucleic acids to precisely engineer complex nanostructures. Characterizing these self-assembled structures at the single-structure level is crucial for validating their design and…
Colloids are abundant in nature, science and technology, with examples ranging from milk to quantum dots and the "colloidal atom" paradigm. Similarly, liquid crystal ordering is important in contexts ranging from biological membranes to…
Depletion forces play a role in the compaction and de-compation of chromosomal material in simple cells but it remains debatable whether they are sufficient to account for chromosomal collapse. We present coarse-grained molecular dynamics…
DNA is increasingly employed for bio and nanotechnology thanks to its exquisite versatility and designability. Most of its use is limited to linearised and torsionally relaxed DNA but non-trivial architectures and torsionally constrained --…
Self-propelled colloidal particles exhibit rich non-equilibrium phenomena and have promising applications in fields such as drug delivery and self-assembled active materials. Previous experimental and theoretical studies have shown that…
Biomolecular condensates self-assemble when proteins and nucleic acids spontaneously demix to form droplets within the crowded intracellular milieu. This simple mechanism underlies the formation of a wide variety of membraneless…
The phase behaviour of a single large semiflexible polymer immersed in a suspension of spherical particles is studied. All interactions are simple excluded volume interactions and the diameter of the spherical particles is an order of…
Polymer composites are ubiquitous in biology and industry alike, owing to their emergent desirable mechanical properties not attainable in single-species systems. At the same time, polymer topology has been shown to play a key role in…
The correlations between the sequence of monomers in a polymer and its three-dimensional structure is a grand challenge in polymer science and biology. The properties and functions of macromolecules depend on their 3D shape that has…
We use a coarse-grained model of DNA-functionalized particles to understand the role of DNA chain length on their self-assembly. We find that the increasing chain length for a given particle size decreases the propensity to form ordered…
The folding transition of biopolymers from the coil to compact structures has attracted wide research interest in the past and is well studied in polymer physics. Recent seminal works on DNA in confined devices have shown that these long…
The transport of deformable particles through porous media underlies a wealth of applications ranging from filtration to oil recovery to the transport and spreading of biological agents. Using direct numerical simulations, we analyze the…
Spontaneous self-assembly in molecular systems is a fundamental route to both biological and engineered soft matter. Simple micellisation, emulsion formation, and polymer mixing principles are well understood. However, the principles behind…
Myriad viruses use positive-strand RNA molecules as their genomes. Far from being only a repository of genetic material, viral RNA performs numerous other functions mediated by its physical structure and chemical properties. In this…
Colloidal systems find important applications ranging from fabrication of photonic crystals to direct probing of phenomena typically encountered in atomic crystals and glasses. New applications - such as nanoantennas, plasmonic sensors, and…
We introduce and numerically study a model designed to mimic the bulk behavior of a system composed of single-stranded DNA dendrimers. Complementarity of the base sequences of different strands results in the formation of strong cooperative…
We report experimental and simulation studies of the structure of a monolayer of indented ("lock and key") colloids, on a planar surface. On adding a non-absorbing polymer with prescribed radius and volume fraction, depletion interactions…