Related papers: Structural symmetry and membrane curvature sensing
Measurements of lateral diffusion of proteins in a membrane typically assume that the movement of the protein occurs in a flat plane. Real membranes, however, are subject to thermal fluctuations, leading to movement of an inclusion into the…
The intricate three-dimensional geometries of protein tertiary structures underlie protein function and emerge through a folding process from one-dimensional chains of amino acids. The exact spatial sequence and configuration of amino…
Motivation: Thanks to the recent advances in structural biology, nowadays three-dimensional structures of various proteins are solved on a routine basis. A large portion of these contain structural repetitions or internal symmetries. To…
In recent experiments [T. Basta et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 111, 670 (2014)] lipids and membrane proteins were observed to self-assemble into membrane protein polyhedral nanoparticles (MPPNs) with a well-defined polyhedral protein…
The ability to absorb mutations while retaining structure and function, or mutational robustness, is a remarkable property of natural proteins. In this Letter, we use a computational model of organismic evolution [Zeldovich et al, PLOS Comp…
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…
Biological membranes typically contain a large number of different components dispersed in small concentrations in the main membrane phase, including proteins, sugars, and lipids of varying geometrical properties. Most of these components…
Cell plasma membranes display a dramatically rich structural complexity characterized by functional sub-wavelength domains with specific lipid and protein composition. Under favorable experimental conditions, patterned morphologies can also…
We study a physical model for the interaction between general inclusions bound to fluid membranes that possess finite tension, as well as the usual bending rigidity. We are motivated by an interest in proteins bound to cell membranes that…
Structural defects within amorphous packings of symmetric particles can be characterized using a machine learning approach that incorporates structure functions of radial distances and angular arrangement. This yields a scalar field,…
Biological membranes mainly consist of lipids and proteins. While the proteins have many functions as single molecules, the membrane as a whole displays physical properties that cannot be explained on the single molecule level. For example,…
A major part of membrane function is conducted by proteins, both integral and peripheral. Peripheral membrane proteins temporarily adhere to biological membranes, either to the lipid bilayer or to integral membrane proteins with…
We consider multi-chain protein native structures and propose a criterion that determines whether two chains in the system are entangled or not. The criterion is based on the behavior observed by pulling at both temini of each chain…
Membrane deformation inside living cells is crucial for the proper shaping of various intracellular organelles and is necessary during the fission/fusion processes that allow membrane recycling and transport (e.g. endocytosis). Proteins…
The notion of energy landscapes provides conceptual tools for understanding the complexities of protein folding and function. Energy Landscape Theory indicates that it is much easier to find sequences that satisfy the "Principle of Minimal…
Plasma membrane tubes are ubiquitous in cellular membranes and in the membranes of intracellular organelles. They play crucial roles in trafficking, ion transport, and cellular motility. The formation of plasma membrane tubes can be due to…
Intracellular protein patterns regulate many vital cellular functions, such as the processing of spatiotemporal information or the control of shape deformations. To do so, pattern-forming systems can be sensitive to the cell geometry by…
We study the dynamics of orientational phase ordering in fluid membranes. Through numerical simulation we find an unusually slow coarsening of topological texture, which is limited by subdiffusive propagation of membrane curvature. The…
The parabolic structure of the secondary or conjugate spectra of pulsars is often the result of isolated one-dimensional (or at least highly anisotropic) lenses in the ISM. The curvature of these features contains information about the…
The growing interest for comparing protein internal dynamics owes much to the realization that protein function can be accompanied or assisted by structural fluctuations and conformational changes. Analogously to the case of functional…