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Real-time deformability cytometry (RT-DC) enables high-throughput, contact-free mechanical characterization of soft microscopic objects. Here we apply this technique to giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs). To interpret vesicle deformation in…
We discuss a realistic scenario, accounting for the existence of sub-micrometric protein domains in cell membranes. At the biological level, such membrane domains have been shown to be specialized, in order to perform a determined…
By means of lattice-based Monte Carlo simulations, we address properties of two-component lipid membranes on the experimentally relevant spatial scales of order of a micrometer and time intervals of order of a second, using DMPC/DSPC lipid…
Hydrodynamics is known to have strong effects on the kinetics of phase separation. There exist open questions on how such effects manifest in systems under confinement. Here, we have undertaken extensive studies of the kinetics of phase…
As undesirable defects, grain boundaries (GBs) are widespread in epitaxial graphene using existing growth methods on metal substrates. Employing density functional theory calculations, we first identify that the misorientations of carbon…
We present an experimental micro-model of drying porous media, based on microfluidic cells made of arrays of pillars on a regular grid, and complement these experiments with a matching two-dimensional pore-network model of drying. Disorder,…
Phase separation of intrinsically disordered proteins is important for the formation of membraneless organelles, or biomolecular condensates, which play key roles in the regulation of biochemical processes within cells. In this work, we…
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…
Mixtures of lipids and cholesterol are commonly used as model systems for studying the formation of liquid-ordered ($L_o$) domains in heterogeneous biological membranes. The simplest model system exhibiting coexistence between $L_o$ domains…
We study the equilibrium conformations of a lipid domain on a planar fluid membrane where the domain is decorated by a vector field representing the tilt of the stiff fatty acid chains of the lipid molecules, while the surrounding membrane…
The Gaussian (saddle splay) rigidity of fluid membranes controls their equilibrium topology but is notoriously difficult to measure. In lipid mixtures, typical of living cells, linear interfaces separate liquid ordered (LO) from liquid…
We theoretically investigate the thermally-driven curvature and lipid density fluctuations of a quasi-spherical vesicle, accounting for the dissipation due to monolayer viscosity and intermonolayer friction. The theory predicts that…
The formation of biomolecular condensates inside cells often involve intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs), and several of these IDPs are also capable of forming droplet-like dense assemblies on their own, through liquid-liquid phase…
Viscosity is a key property of cell membranes that controls mobility of embedded proteins and membrane remodeling. Measuring it is challenging because existing approaches involve complex experimental designs and/or models, and the…
The discovery of different phases as a result of correlations, especially in low-dimensional materials, has been always an exciting and fundamental subject of research. Recent experiments on twisted bilayer graphene have revealed reentrant…
Phase separation within polymer networks plays a central role in shaping the structure and mechanics of both synthetic materials and living cells, including the formation of biomolecular condensates within cytoskeletal networks. Previous…
This study uses two-dimensional infrared (2D IR) spectroscopy in conjunction with isotope labeling and spectral modeling from molecular dynamics simulations to identify the dominant turn conformations that exist in equilibrium ensembles of…
Multicomponent lipid mixtures exhibit complex phase behavior, including coexistence of nanoscopic fluid phases in ternary mixtures mimicking the composition of the outer leaflet of mammalian plasma membrane. The physical mechanisms…
In cell membranes, proteins and lipids diffuse in a highly crowded and heterogeneous landscape, where aggregates and dense domains of proteins or lipids obstruct the path of diffusing molecules. In general, hindered motion gives rise to…
Unraveling the relation between the chemical structure of small drug-like compounds and their rate of passive permeation across lipid membranes is of fundamental importance for pharmaceutical applications. The elucidation of a comprehensive…