Related papers: Continuum Electrostatics in Cell Biology
The mitotic spindle partitions chromosomes during cell division by connecting the poles to kinetochores through microtubules (MTs). Their plus-ends, facing the chromosomes, exhibit dynamic instability, which is critical for proper…
Distributed point charge models (DCM) and their minimal variants (MDCM) have been integrated with tools widely used for condensed-phase simulations, including a virial-based barostat and a slow-growth algorithm for thermodynamic…
We review continuum elastic models for the transmission of both external forces and internal active cellular forces in biopolymer gels, and relate them to recent experiments. Rather than being exhaustive, we focus on continuum elastic…
From a purely operational standpoint, the existence of microbes that can grow under extreme conditions, or "extremophiles", leads to the question of how the molecules making up these microbes can maintain both their structure and function.…
We present a combined study of thermal expansion and resistance fluctuation spectroscopy measurements exploring the static and dynamic aspects of the charge-glass formation in the quasi-two-dimensional organic conductors…
In the study of colloidal, biological and electrochemical systems, it is customary to treat surfaces, macromolecules and electrodes as homogeneously charged. This simplified approach is proven successful in most cases, but fails to describe…
Recent experiments suggest that the interplay between cells and the mechanics of their substrate gives rise to a diversity of morphological and migrational behaviors. Here, we develop a Cellular Potts Model of polarizing cells on a…
Piezoelectricity, the generation of electric charge in response to mechanical stress, is a key property in both natural and synthetic materials. This study significantly boosts the piezoelectric response of chitosan, a biodegradable…
A fundamental design rule that nature has developed for biological machines is the intimate correlation between motion and function. One class of biological machines is molecular motors in living cells, which directly convert chemical…
Biological systems rely on autonomous modes of charge transport to transmit signals, whereas conventional artificial systems typically depend on external fields, such as voltage or pressure gradients, limiting their adaptability. Here we…
We consider theoretically the dynamics of electric currents optically injected in carbon nanotubes. Although the plasma oscillations are not seen in these systems, the main effect on the carrier's motion is due to strongly nonuniform…
Anomalously slow passive diffusion, $\langle \delta x^2(t)\rangle\simeq t^{\alpha}$, with $0<\alpha<1$, of larger tracers such as messenger RNA and endogenous submicron granules in the cytoplasm of living biological cells has been…
Many types of mammalian cells exert active contractile forces and mechanically deform their elastic substrate, to accomplish biological functions such as cell migration. These substrate deformations provide a mechanism by which cells can…
Electronic nematicity is widely observed in quantum materials with varying degrees of electronic correlation, manifesting through charge, spin, orbital, or superconducting degrees of freedom. A phenomenological model capable of describing…
We develop a theory of enzyme catalysis within biological cells where the substrate concentration [S](t) is time dependent, in contrast to the Michaelis-Menten theory that assumes a steady state. We find that the time varying concentration…
Point polarizable molecules at fixed spatial positions have solvable electrostatic properties in classical approximation, the most familiar being the Clausius-Mossotti (CM) formula. This paper generalizes the model and imagines various…
Living tissue is able to withstand large stresses in everyday life, yet it also actively adapts to dynamic loads. This remarkable mechanical behaviour emerges from the interplay between living cells and their non-living extracellular…
Confluent populations of elongated cells give rise to ordered patterns seen in nematic phase liquid crystals. We correlate cell elongation and intercellular distance with intercellular alignment using an amorphous spin glass model. We…
During the eukaryotic cell cycle, chromatin undergoes several conformational changes, which are believed to play key roles in gene expression regulation during interphase, and in genome replication and division during mitosis. In this…
A relativistic system of electrically charged fermions and oppositely charged massive scalars with no self-interactions, is argued to have a long-lived collective state with a net charge. The charge is residing near the surface of the…