Related papers: Controlling cargo trafficking in multicomponent me…
Tension in lipid membranes is often controlled externally, by pulling on the boundary of the membrane or changing osmotic pressure across a curved membrane. But modifications of the tension can also be induced in an internal fashion, for…
In cell membranes, proteins and lipids are organized into sub-micrometric nanodomains of varying size, shape and composition, performing specific functions. Despite their biological importance, the detailed morphology of these nanodomains…
Targeted drug delivery relies on two physical processes: the selective binding of a therapeutic particle to receptors on a specific cell membrane, followed by transport of the particle across the membrane. In this article, we address some…
A cell membrane can be simply regarded as composite material consisting of lipid bilayer, membrane cytoskeleton beneath lipid bilayer, and proteins embedded in lipid bilayer and linked with membrane cytoskeleton if one only concerns its…
Crowded environments modify the diffusion of macromolecules, generally slowing their movement and inducing transient anomalous subdiffusion. The presence of obstacles also modifies the kinetics and equilibrium behavior of tracers. While…
Cells offer numerous inspiring examples where proteins and membranes combine to form complex structures that are key to intracellular compartmentalization, cargo transport, and specialization of cell morphology. Despite this wealth of…
We simulate the assembly dynamics of icosahedral capsids from subunits that interconvert between different conformations (or quasi-equivalent states). The simulations identify mechanisms by which subunits form empty capsids with only one…
Heterogeneities in the cell membrane due to coexisting lipid phases have been conjectured to play a major functional role in cell signaling and membrane trafficking. Thereby the material properties of multiphase systems, such as the line…
Recent research has shown that motile cells can adapt their mode of propulsion to the mechanical properties of the environment in which they find themselves--crawling in some environments while swimming in others. The latter can involve…
In living cells, protein-rich condensates can wet the cell membrane and surfaces of membrane-bound organelles. Interestingly, many phase-separating proteins also bind to membranes leading to a molecular layer of bound molecules. Here we…
The transport of particles across lipid-bilayer membranes is important for biological cells to exchange information and material with their environment. Large particles often get wrapped by membranes, a process which has been intensively…
Coordinated cellular movements are key processes in tissue morphogenesis. Using a cell-based modeling approach we study the dynamics of epithelial layers lining surfaces with constant and varying curvature. We demonstrate that extrinsic…
The cargo motion in living cells transported by two species of motor protein with different intrinsic directionality is discussed in this study. Similar to single motor movement, cargo steps forward and backward along microtubule…
Direct numerical simulations (DNS) of particle-laden turbulent flow in straight, mildly curved and strongly bent pipes are performed in which the solid phase is modelled as small heavy spherical particles. A total of seven populations of…
Cell membranes are anchored to the cytoskeleton via immobile inclusions. We investigate the effect of such anchors on the in-plane dynamics of a fluid membrane and mobile inclusions (proteins) embedded in it. The immobile particles lead to…
In the absence of environmental cues, a migrating cell performs an isotropic random motion. Recently, the breaking of this isotropy has been observed when cells move in the presence of asymmetric adhesive patterns. However, up to now the…
The motility of eukaryotic cells is strongly influenced by their environment, with confined cells often developing qualitatively different motility patterns from those migrating on simple two-dimensional substrates. Recent experiments,…
Eukaryotic cells maintain their inner order by a hectic process of distillation of molecular factors taking place on the surface of their lipid membranes. To understand the properties of this molecular sorting process, a physical model of…
We address the relationship between membrane microheterogeneity and anomalous subdiffusion in cell membranes by carrying out Monte Carlo simulations of two-component lipid membranes. We find that near-critical fluctuations in the membrane…
The biophysical consequences of nanoscale curvature have been challenging to resolve due to size-dependent membrane behavior and the experimental resolution limits imposed by optical diffraction. Recent advances in nanoengineering and…