Related papers: Controlling cargo trafficking in multicomponent me…
Trafficking of glutamate receptors into and out of synapses is critically involved in the plasticity of excitatory synaptic transmission. Endocytosis and exocytosis of receptors have initially been thought to account alone for this…
Exocytosis is a common transport mechanism via which cells transport out non-essential macro-molecules (cargo) into the extra cellular space. ESCRT-III proteins are known to help in this. They polymerize into a conical spring like structure…
We propose a model describing the phase behavior of two-component membranes consisting of binary mixtures of electrically charged and neutral lipids. We take into account the structural phase transition (main-transition) of the hydrocarbon…
Liquid-liquid phase separation has emerged as a fundamental mechanism underlying intracellular organization, with evidence for it being reported in numerous different systems. However, there is a growing concern regarding the lack of…
Cellular uptake of nanoplastics is instrumental in their environmental accumulation and transfer to humans through the food chain. Despite extensive studies using spherical plastic nanoparticles, the influence of the morphological…
Membrane budding and wrapping of particles, such as viruses and nano-particles, play a key role in intracellular transport and have been studied for a variety of biological and soft matter systems. We study nano-particle wrapping by…
Current mathematical frameworks for predicting the flux state and macromolecular composition of the cell do not rely on thermodynamic constraints to determine the spontaneous direction of reactions. These predictions may be biologically…
Membrane pores are implicated in several critical functions, including cell fusion and the transport of signaling molecules for intercellular communication. However, these structural features are often difficult to probe directly. Droplet…
The quantitative understanding of membranes is still rooted in work performed in the 1970s by Helfrich and others, concerning amphiphilic bilayers. However, most biological membranes contain a wide variety of nonamphiphilic molecules too.…
A common type of cytoskeletal morphology involves multiple converging microbutubules with their minus ends collected and stabilized by a microtubule organizing center (MTOC) in the interior of the cell. This arrangement enables the…
Cell membranes separate the cell interior from the external environment. They are constituted by a variety of lipids; their composition determines the dynamics of membrane proteins and affects the ability of the cells to adapt. Even though…
All materials enter or exit the cell nucleus through nuclear pore complexes (NPCs), efficient transport devices that combine high selectivity and throughput. A central feature of this transport is the binding of cargo-carrying soluble…
A fundamental question in biology is to understand how patterns and shapes emerge from the collective interplay of large numbers of cells. Cells forming two-dimensional epithelial tissues behave as active materials that undergo remodeling…
Water molecules confined between biological membranes exhibit a distinctive non-Gaussian displacement distribution, far different from bulk water. Here, we introduce a new transport equation for water molecules in the intermembrane space,…
Diffusive transport of small molecules within the internal structures of biological and synthetic material systems is complex because the crowded environment presents chemical and physical barriers to mobility. We explored this mobility…
Biological membranes are host to proteins and molecules which may form domain-like structures resulting in spatially-varying material properties. Vesicles with such heterogeneous membranes can exhibit intricate shapes at equilibrium and…
The assembly of curved protein rods on fluid membranes is studied using implicit-solvent meshless membrane simulations. As the rod curvature increases, the rods on a membrane tube assemble along the azimuthal direction first and…
Native membranes of biological cells display melting transitions of their lipids at a temperature of 10-20 degrees below body temperature. Such transitions can be observed in various bacterial cells, in nerves, in cancer cells, but also in…
When the motion of a motile cell is observed closely, it appears erratic, and yet the combination of nonequilibrium forces and surfaces can produce striking examples of organization in microbial systems. While most of our current…
Intracellular transport is an essential function in eucaryotic cells, facilitated by motor proteins - proteins converting chemical energy into kinetic energy. It is known that motor proteins work in teams enabling unidirectional and…