Related papers: The Physics of Protein Self-Assembly
Capsids of many viruses assemble around nucleic acids or other polymers. Understanding how the properties of the packaged polymer affect the assembly process could promote biomedical efforts to prevent viral assembly or nanomaterials…
Advances in experimental techniques and in theoretical models have improved our understanding of protein crystallization. But they have also left open questions regarding the protein phase behavior and self-assembly kinetics, such as why…
Amyloid fibers are aggregates of proteins. They are built out of a peptide called $\beta$--amyloid (A$\beta$) containing between 41 and 43 residues, produced by the action of an enzyme which cleaves a much larger protein known as the…
Understanding interactions between microparticles and lipid membranes is of increasing importance, especially for unraveling the influence of microplastics on our health and environment. Here, we study how a short-ranged adhesive force…
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…
Self-assembly is traditionally described as the process through which an initially disordered system relaxes towards an equilibrium ordered phase only driven by local interactions between its building blocks. However, This definition is too…
Proteins are a matter of dual nature. As a physical object, a protein molecule is a folded chain of amino acids with multifarious biochemistry. But it is also an instantiation along an evolutionary trajectory determined by the function…
The self-assembly of molecules at surfaces can be caused by a range of physical mechanisms. Assembly can be driven by intermolecular forces, or molecule-surface forces, or both; it can result in structures that are in equilibrium or that…
We propose a new mechanism to create self-assembled porous media with highly tunable geometrical properties and permeabilities: We first allow a particle-stabilized emulsion to form from a mixture of two fluids and colloidal particles.…
Understanding the relationship between colloidal building block shape and self-assembled material structure is important for the development of novel materials by self-assembly. In this regard, colloidal superballs are unique building…
A vital constituent of a virus is its protein shell, called the viral capsid, that encapsulates and hence provides protection for the viral genome. Assembly models are developed for viral capsids built from protein building blocks that can…
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…
Proteins are intricate molecular machines whose complexity arises from the heterogeneity of the amino acid building blocks and their dynamic network of many-body interactions. These nanomachines gain function when put in the context of a…
Protein-stabilised emulsion gels can be studied in the theoretical framework of colloidal gels, because both protein assemblies and droplets may be considered as soft colloids. These particles differ in their nature, size and softness, and…
The ability to control the crystallization behaviour (including its absence) of particles, be they biomolecules such as globular proteins, inorganic colloids, nanoparticles, or metal atoms in an alloy, is of both fundamental and…
Building structures with hierarchical order through the self-assembly of smaller blocks is not only a prerogative of nature, but also a strategy to design artificial materials with tailored functions. We explore in simulation 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…
Protein fibril accumulation at interfaces is an important step in many physiological processes and neurodegenerative diseases as well as in designing materials. Here we show, using $\beta$-lactoglobulin fibrils as a model, that semiflexible…
The formation and proliferation of protein aggregates play a central role in a number of devastating neuro-degenerative diseases. Many experimental studies indicate that the ability of existing aggregates to replicate is a key property in…
Molecular self-assembly is a well-known technique to create highly functional nanostructures on surfaces. Self-assembly on two-dimensional materials is a developing field and has already resulted in the discovery of several rich and…