Related papers: Layer dependent role of collagen recruitment durin…
A microscopic theory of the free energy barriers and folding routes for minimally frustrated proteins is presented, greatly expanding on the presentation of the variational approach outlined previously [J. J. Portman, S. Takada, P. G.…
Confined thin structures are ubiquitous in nature. Spatial and length constraints have led to a number of novel packing strategies at both the micro-scale, as when DNA packages inside a capsid, and the macro-scale, seen in plant root…
Polymer adsorption is a fundamental problem in statistical mechanics that has direct relevance to diverse disciplines ranging from biological lubrication to stability of colloidal suspensions. We combine experiments with computer…
Collagen fibres play an important role in the mechanical behaviour of many soft tissues. Modelling of such tissues now often incorporates a collagen fibre distribution. However, the availability of accurate structural data has so far lagged…
Biological hydrogels have been increasingly sought after as e.g. wound dressings or scaffolds for regenerative medicine, due to their inherent biofunctionality in biological environments. Especially in moist wound healing, the ideal…
Materials that respond to external stimuli by expanding or contracting provide a transduction route that integrates sensing and actuation powered directly by the stimuli. This motivates us to build colloidal scale robots using these…
Fecal incontinence, arising from a myriad of pathogenic mechanisms, has attracted considerable global attention. Despite its significance, the replication of the defecatory system for studying fecal incontinence mechanisms remains limited…
Precise segmentation of bladder walls and tumor regions is an essential step towards non-invasive identification of tumor stage and grade, which is critical for treatment decision and prognosis of patients with bladder cancer (BC). However,…
Cohesive zone models do not consider the lateral contraction of adhesive layers under tensile loads. The constraint of the lateral contraction by the adherents which depends on the geometry of the adhesive layer has a major influence on the…
Collagen is a key structural protein in the human body, which undergoes mineralization during the formation of hard tissues. Earlier studies have described the mechanical behavior of bone at different scales highlighting material features…
Collagen fibrils, cable-like assemblies of long biological molecules, are dominant components of connective tissues. Their determinant morphological and functional roles motivated a large number of studies concerning their formation and…
We focused on polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) as a substrate for replication, micropatterning, and construction of biologically active surfaces. The novelty of this study is based on the combina-tion of argon plasma exposure of micropatterned…
We present some results of Monte Carlo simulations for the deposition of particles of different sizes on a two-dimensional substrate. The particles are linear, height one, and can be deposited randomly only in the two, $x$ and $y$…
Forced desorption of a semiflexible polymer chain on a solid substrate is theoretically investigated. The pulling force versus displacement is studied for different adsorption energy and persistence length P. It is found that the…
We study the micromechanics of collagen-I gel with the goal of bridging the gap between theory and experiment in the study of biopolymer networks. Three-dimensional images of fluorescently labeled collagen are obtained by confocal…
We investigate the folding and forced-unbinding transitions of adsorbed semiflexible polymer chains using theory and simulations. These processes describe biologically relevant phenomena that include adhesive interactions between proteins…
The motion involved in barrier crossing for protein folding are investigated in terms of the chain dynamics of the polymer backbone, completing the microscopic description of protein folding presented in the previous paper. Local reaction…
Tree frogs are able take advantage of an interconnected network of epithelial cells in their toe pads to modulate their adhesion to surfaces under dry, wet, and flooded environments. It has been hypothesized that these interconnected…
An infinite hierarchy of layering transitions exists for model polymers in solution under poor solvent or low temperatures and near an attractive surface. A flat histogram stochastic growth algorithm known as FlatPERM has been used on a…
A coarse-grained variational model is used to investigate the polymer dynamics of barrier crossing for a diverse set of two-state folding proteins. The model gives reliable folding rate predictions provided excluded volume terms that induce…