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The conjugation of high-affinity cRGD-containing peptides is a promising approach in nanomedicine to efficiently reduce off-targeting effects and enhance the cellular uptake by integrin-overexpressing tumor cells. Herein we utilize…
We examine the mechanism of bundling of cytoskeletal actin filaments by two representative bundling proteins, fascin and espin. Small-angle X-ray studies show that increased binding from linkers drives a systematic \textit{overtwist} of…
We demonstrate that internal pivot-like defects, arising from rigor mutant motor proteins that bind without stepping, fundamentally reshape the dynamics of semiflexible filaments in two-dimensional motility assays. Using large-scale…
In this study, we explore nucleation and the transition state ensemble of the ribosomal protein S6 using a Monte Carlo Go model in conjunction with restraints from experiment. The results are analyzed in the context of extensive…
Contractile forces are essential for many developmental processes involving cell shape change and tissue deformation. Recent experiments on reconstituted actomyosin networks, the major component of the contractile machinery, have shown that…
Immune cells learn about their antigenic targets using tactile sense: during recognition, a highly organized yet dynamic motif, named immunological synapse, forms between immune cells and antigen-presenting cells (APCs). Via synapses,…
Catch-bonds, whereby noncovalent ligand-receptor interactions are counterintuitively reinforced by tensile forces, play a major role in cell adhesion under mechanical stress. A basic prerequisite for catch-bond formation is that…
Many biological tissues feature a heterogeneous network of fibers whose tensile and bending rigidity contribute substantially to these tissues' elastic properties. Rigidity percolation has emerged as a important paradigm for relating these…
The compression of soft elastic matter and biological tissue can lead to creasing, an instability where a surface folds sharply into periodic self-contacts. Intriguingly, the unfolding of the surface upon releasing the strain is usually not…
The motility of a cell can be triggered or inhibited not only by an applied force but also by a mechanically neutral force couple. This type of loading, represented by an applied stress and commonly interpreted as either squeezing or…
Cells in multicellular organisms adhere to the extracellular matrix through two-dimensional clusters spanning a size range from very few to thousands of adhesion bonds. For many common receptor-ligand systems, the ligands are tethered to a…
We study the binding of plant hormone IAA on its receptor TIR1 introducing a novel computational method that we call tomographic docking and that accounts for interactions occurring along the depth of the binding pocket. Our results suggest…
Cells rely on focal adhesions (FAs) to carry out a variety of important tasks, including motion, environmental sensing, and adhesion to the extracellular matrix. Although attaining a fundamental characterization of FAs is a compelling goal,…
Apoptotic cell death is coordinated through two distinct (type 1 and type 2) intracellular signaling pathways. How the type 1/type 2 choice is made remains a fundamental problem in the biology of apoptosis and has implications for apoptosis…
The biophysical interactions between the T cell receptor (TCR) and its ligands determine the specificity of the cellular immune response. However, the immense diversity of receptors and ligands has made it challenging to discover…
We report a motility-induced pinning transition in the active Ising model for a self-propelled particle system with discrete symmetry. This model was known to exhibit a liquid-gas type flocking phase transition, but a recent study reveals…
Protein-ligand binding is essential to almost all life processes. The understanding of protein-ligand interactions is fundamentally important to rational drug design and protein design. Based on large scale data sets, we show that protein…
How cells reliably infer information about their environment is a fundamentally important question. While sensing and signaling generally start with cell-surface receptors, the degree of accuracy with which a cell can measure external…
There is compelling evidence that substrate stiffness affects cell adhesion as well as cytoskeleton organization and contractile activity. This work was designed to study the cytoskeletal contractile activity of cells plated on microposts…
Animal cells in tissues are supported by biopolymer matrices, which typically exhibit highly nonlinear mechanical properties. While the linear elasticity of the matrix can significantly impact cell mechanics and functionality, it remains…