Related papers: A lipid bound actin meshwork organizes liquid phas…
We report on the modeling of the dynamics of confined lipid membranes. We derive a thin film model in the lubrication limit which describes an inextensible liquid membrane with bending rigidity confined between two adhesive walls. The…
Biological membranes are elastic media in which the presence of a transmembrane protein leads to local bilayer deformation. The energetics of deformation allow two membrane proteins in close proximity to influence each other's equilibrium…
Centering and decentering of cellular components is essential for internal organization of cells and their ability to perform basic cellular functions such as division and motility. How cells achieve proper localization of their components…
Cell membranes phase separate into ordered ${\rm L_o}$ and disordered ${\rm L_d}$ domains depending on their compositions. This membrane compartmentalization is heterogeneous and regulates the localization of specific proteins related to…
Many lipid membrane-mediated transport processes--such as mechanically-gated channel activation and solute transport--involve structural and dynamical features on membrane thickness length scales. Most existing membrane models, however,…
We investigated the phase separation of dioleoylphosphatidylserine (DOPS) and dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) in giant unilamellar vesicles in hypotonic solution using fluorescence and confocal laser scanning microscopy. Although…
The cytoskeleton of eukaryotic cells provides mechanical support and governs intracellular transport. These functions rely on the complex mechanical properties of networks of semiflexible protein filaments. Recent theoretical interest has…
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…
Cells and tissues have the remarkable ability to actively generate the forces required to change their shape. This active mechanical behavior is largely mediated by the actin cytoskeleton, a crosslinked network of actin filaments that is…
The activity of cell membrane inclusions (such as ion channels) is influenced by the host lipid membrane, to which they are elastically coupled. This coupling concerns the hydrophobic thickness of the bilayer (imposed by the length of the…
Eukaryotic cells demonstrate a wide variety of dynamic patterns of filamentous actin (F-actin) and its regulators. Some of these patterns play important roles in cell functions, such as distinct motility modes, which motivate this study. We…
Liquid-liquid phase separation is emerging as a crucial phenomenon in several fundamental cell processes. A range of eukaryotic systems exhibit liquid condensates. However, their function in bacteria, which in general lack membrane-bound…
Polymerization of dendritic actin networks underlies important mechanical processes in cell biology such as the protrusion of lamellipodia, propulsion of growth cones in dendrites of neurons, intracellular transport of organelles and…
Biomolecular condensates play essential roles in cellular processes, and recent efforts have focused on understanding their assembly and rational design principles. In this study, we have employed an explicit-solvent minimal statistical…
Atomistic simulations were performed on hydrated model lipid multilayers that are representative of the lipid matrix in the outer skin (stratum corneum). We find that cholesterol transfers easily between adjacent leaflets belonging to the…
Living cells dynamically modulate the local morphologies of their actin cytoskeletons to perform biological functions, including force transduction, intracellular transport, and cell division. A major challenge is to understand how diverse…
We present a generic mechanism by which reproducing microorganisms, with a diffusivity that depends on the local population density, can form stable patterns. It is known that a decrease of swimming speed with density can promote separation…
We employ a molecular model to study a ternary mixture of saturated lipid, with tails of sixteen carbons, a mono unsaturated lipid with tails of eighteen carbons, and cholesterol. The model, solved within mean-field theory, produces several…
Cellular membranes are elastic lipid bilayers that contain a variety of proteins, including ion channels, receptors, and scaffolding proteins. These proteins are known to diffuse in the plane of the membrane and to influence the bending of…
A physical scenario accounting for the existence of size-limited submicrometric domains in cell membranes is proposed. It is based on the numerical investigation of the counterpart, in lipidic membranes where proteins are diffusing, of the…