Related papers: Continuum Electrostatics in Cell Biology
Simulating protein-membrane interactions is an important and dynamic area of research. A proper definition of electrostatic forces on membrane surfaces is necessary for developing electromechanical models of protein-membrane interactions.…
Electrostatic forces play many important roles in molecular biology, but are hard to model due to the complicated interactions between biomolecules and the surrounding solvent, a fluid composed of water and dissolved ions. Continuum model…
Short-in-time, broad-in-energy attosecond or few-femtosecond pulses can excite coherent superpositions of several electronic states in molecules. This results in ultrafast charge oscillations known as charge migration. A key open question…
Highly specific spatiotemporal interactions between cognate molecular partners essentially sustain all biochemical transactions in the living matter. That such an exquisite level of accuracy may result from encountering forces solely driven…
Magnetotactic bacteria (MTB) are endowed with an exquisite orientation mechanism allowing them to swim along the geomagnetic field lines. This mechanism consists of a chain of bio-synthesized magnetic nano-crystals that endow MTB with a…
The quality of biomolecular simulations critically depends on the accuracy of the force field used to calculate the potential energy of the molecular configurations. Currently, most simulations employ non-polarisable force fields, which…
Background: For faithful chromosome segregation during cell division, correct attachments must be established between sister chromosomes and microtubules from opposite spindle poles through kinetochores (chromosome bi-orientation).…
Assembly and stability of mitotic spindle is governed by the interplay of various intra-cellular forces, e.g. the forces generated by motor proteins by sliding overlapping anti-parallel microtubules (MTs) polymerized from the opposite…
Micropatterned substrates are often used to standardize cell experiments and to quantitatively study the relation between cell shape and function. Moreover, they are increasingly used in combination with traction force microscopy on soft…
Biomolecular motors use free energy to drive a variety of cellular tasks, including the transport of cargo, such as vesicles and organelles. We find that the widely-used `constant-force' approximation for the effect of cargo on motor…
Accompanied by the development of microfabrication techniques, such as MEMS and micro-TAS, there has been increasing interests on the methodology to generate a desired motion on a micro object in a solution environment. It is well know that…
It is increasingly being realized that liquid-crystalline features can play an important role in the properties and dynamics of cell monolayers. Here, we present a cell-based model of cell layers, based on the phase-field formulation, that…
We demonstrate, for the first time, the large electromechanical response in nematic liquid crystalline elastomers filled with a very low (~0.01%) concentration of carbon nanotubes, aligned along the nematic director at preparation. The…
Nanopores spanning synthetic membranes have been used as key components in proof-of-principle nanofluidic applications, particularly those involving manipulation of biomolecules or sequencing of DNA. The only practical way of manipulating…
Inspired by recent experiments on chromosomal dynamics, we introduce an exactly solvable model for the interaction between a flexible polymer and a set of motor-like enzymes. The enzymes can bind and unbind to specific sites of the polymer…
Droplets are essential for spatially controlling biomolecules in cells. To work properly, cells need to control the emergence and morphology of droplets. On the one hand, driven chemical reactions can affect droplets profoundly. For…
We studied the step dynamics during sublimation and growth in the presence of electromigration force acting on the adatoms. In the limit of fast surface diffusion and slow kinetics of atom attachment-detachment at the steps we formulate a…
However, their electrocatalytic activity is still poorly understood. This work deciphers the origin of the catalytic activity of counter-electrodes (CEs)/current collectors made of self-standing carbon nanotubes fibers (CNTfs) using…
The rising demand for high-performing batteries requires new technological concepts. To facilitate fast charge and discharge, hierarchically structured electrodes offer short diffusion paths in the active material. However, there are still…
Constructing physical models of living cells and tissues is an extremely challenging task because of the high complexities of both intra- and intercellular processes. In addition, the force that a single cell generates vanishes in total due…