Related papers: Examples of molecular self-assembly at surfaces
Proteins can combine into functional elements in living cells or self-assemble into unwanted structures in a number of diseases. The resulting aggregates often display filamentous morphologies across a large range of protein shapes and…
Understanding protein self-assembly is important for many biological and industrial processes. Proteins can self-assemble into crystals, filaments, gels, and other amorphous aggregates. The final forms include virus capsids and condensed…
Polypeptides can self-assemble into hierarchically organized fibrils consisting of a stack of individually folded polypeptides driven together by hydrophobic interaction. Using a coarse grained model, we systematically studied this…
The self-assembly of amphiphilic molecules usually takes place in a liquid phase, near room temperature. Here, using small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) experiments performed in real time, we show that freezing of aqueous solutions of…
The self-assembly of particles into organized structures is a key feature of living organisms and a major engineering challenge. While it may proceed through the binding of perfectly matched, puzzle-pieces-like particles, many other…
Amphiphilic molecules spontaneously form self-assembled structures of various shapes depending on their molecular structures, the temperature, and other physical conditions. The functionalities of these structures are dictated by their…
For many viruses assembly and budding occur simultaneously during virion formation. Understanding the mechanisms underlying this process could promote biomedical efforts to block viral propagation and enable use of capsids in nanomaterials…
We use computer simulations to investigate self-assembly in a system of model chaperonin proteins, and in an Ising lattice gas. We discuss the mechanisms responsible for rapid and efficient assembly in these systems, and we use measurements…
The molecular self-assembly of various structures such as micelles and vesicles has been the subject of comprehensive studies. Recently, a new approach to design these structures, the frame-guided assembly, has been developed to progress…
The functioning of machines typically requires a concerted action of their parts. This requirement also holds for molecular motors that drive vital cellular processes and imposes constraints on their conformational changes as well as the…
Self-assembly processes are widespread in nature, and lie at the heart of many biological and physical phenomena. The characteristics of self-assembly building blocks determine the structures that they form. Two crucial properties are the…
Cellular functions are established through biological evolution, but are constrained by the laws of physics. For instance, the physics of protein folding limits the lengths of cellular polypeptide chains. Consequently, many cellular…
Emergent phenomena share the fascinating property of not being obvious consequences of the design of the system in which they appear. This characteristic is no less relevant when attempting to simulate such phenomena, given that the outcome…
Motivated by the observations of intracellular phase separations and the wetting of cell membranes by protein droplets, we study the nonequilibrium surface wetting by Monte Carlo simulations of a lattice gas model involving particle…
A collection of thin structures buckle, bend, and bump into each-other when confined. This contact can lead to the formation of patterns: hair will self-organize in curls; DNA strands will layer into cell nuclei; paper, when crumpled, will…
Vesicles self-assembled from amphiphilic diblock copolymers exhibit a wide diversity of behavior upon electroporation, due to competitions between edge, surface and bending energies that drive the system, while different viscous dissipation…
Motivated by recent experimental findings in chemical synthesis of colloidal particles, we draw an analogy between self-assembly processes occurring in biological systems (e.g. protein folding) and a new exciting possibility in the field of…
We introduce a simple dynamical rule in which each particle locates a particle that is farthest from it and moves towards it. Repeated application of this algorithm results in the formation of unusual dynamical patterns: during the process…
The field of complex self-assembly is moving toward the design of multi-particle structures consisting of thousands of distinct building blocks. To exploit the potential benefits of structures with such `addressable complexity,' we need to…
The cytoplasm is a heterogeneous mixture containing many types of proteins that self-assemble into a wide variety of complexes. The accuracy and speed of cytoplasmic self-assembly is astonishing because it involves the correct…