Related papers: Pre-transition effects mediate forces of assembly …
We characterize the order-disorder transition in a model lipid bilayer using molecular dynamics simulations. We find that the ordered phase is hexatic. In particular, in-plane structures possess a finite concentration of 5-7 disclination…
We investigate membrane-mediated interactions between transmembrane proteins using coarse-grained models. We compare the effective potential of mean force (PMF) between two proteins, which are always aligned parallel to the z-axis of the…
Membrane organization is essential for cellular functions such as signal transduction and membrane trafficking. A major challenge is to understand the lateral heterogeneous structures in membranes and membrane fluidity in the presence of…
The two-dimensional ordering of bacteriorhodopsins in a lipid bilayer was studied using a binary hard-disk model. The phase diagrams were calculated, taking into account the lateral depletion effects. The critical concentrations of the…
Protein aggregation in cell membrane is vital for the majority of biological functions. Recent experimental results suggest that transmembrane domains of proteins such as $\alpha$-helices and $\beta$-sheets have different structural…
We study membrane-protein interactions and membrane-mediated protein-protein interactions by Monte Carlo simulations of a generic coarse-grained model for lipid bilayers with cylindrical hydrophobic inclusions. The strength of 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…
We consider the hydrodynamics of lipid bilayers containing transmembrane proteins of arbitrary shape. This biologically-motivated problem is relevant to the cell membrane, whose fluctuating dynamics play a key role in phenomena ranging from…
The behavior of proteins near interfaces is relevant for biological and medical purposes. Previous results in bulk show that, when the protein concentration increases, the proteins unfold and, at higher concentrations, aggregate. Here, we…
Fluctuation-induced forces, such as the Critical Casimir Effect (CCE), are fundamental mechanisms driving organization and self-assembly near second-order phase transitions. The existence of a comparable, universal force for systems…
The assembly of proteins in membranes plays a key role in many crucial cellular pathways. Despite their importance, characterizing transmembrane assembly remains challenging for experiments and simulations. Equilibrium molecular dynamics…
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…
Lipid bilayer membranes are the fundamental biological barriers that permit life. The bilayer dynamics largely participates in orchestrating cellular workings and is characterized by substantial stability together with extreme plasticity…
Unstructured proteins can modulate cellular responses to environmental conditions by undergoing coil-globule transitions and phase separation. However, the molecular mechanisms of these phenomena still need to be fully understood. Here, we…
We solve a model that takes into account entropic barriers, frustration, and the organization of a protein-like molecule. For a chain of size $M$, there is an effective folding transition to an ordered structure. Without frustration, this…
Transient electric fields across cell bilayer membranes can lead to electroporation, as well as to cell fusion, and have been extensively studied. We find that transmembrane electric fields similar to those in cells can lead to a massive,…
It is well known that lipid membranes respond to a threshold transmembrane electric field through a reversible mechanism called electroporation, where hydrophilic water pores form across the membrane, an effect widely used in biological…
Hydrophobic thickness mismatch between integral membrane proteins and the surrounding lipid bilayer can produce lipid bilayer thickness deformations. Experiment and theory have shown that protein-induced lipid bilayer thickness deformations…
I show the assumed Bilayer structure of cell membranes is Topologically falsified by known aminophospholipid dynamics in metabolically-active, Far from Equilibrium cells. The sensitivity of lipid and cytoplasmic flows to temperature,…
Self-assembly of protein monomers into distinct membrane protein oligomers provides a general mechanism for diversity in the molecular architectures, and resulting biological functions, of membrane proteins. We develop a general physical…