Related papers: Spatial control of irreversible protein aggregatio…
The biological function of protein assemblies was conventionally equated with a unique three-dimensional protein structure and protein-specific interactions. However, in the past 20 years it was found that some assemblies contain long…
Diffusion in cell membranes is not just simple two-dimensional Brownian motion, but typically depends on the timescale of the observation. The physical origins of this anomalous sub-diffusion are unresolved, and model systems capable of…
One of the hypothesized functions of biomolecular condensates is to act as chemical reactors, where chemical reactions can be modulated, i.e. accelerated or slowed down, while substrate molecules enter and products exit from the condensate.…
Atomistic force fields that are tuned to describe folded proteins predict overly compact structures for intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs). To correct this, improvements in force fields to better model IDPs are usually paired with…
Experiments show that the movement of eukaryotic cells is regulated by a process of phase separation of two competing enzymes on the cell membrane, that effectively amplifies shallow external gradients of chemical attractant. Notably, the…
Liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) of protein solutions is governed by highly complex protein-protein interactions. Nevertheless, it has been suggested that based on the extended law of corresponding states (ELCS), as proposed for…
Coherent control of atomic and molecular scattering relies on the preparation of colliding particles in superpositions of internal states, establishing interfering pathways that can be used to tune the outcome of a scattering process.…
Phase separation is the thermodynamic process that explains how droplets form in multicomponent fluids. These droplets can provide controlled compartments to localize chemical reactions, and reactions can also affect the droplets' dynamics.…
Scaffold proteins organize cellular processes by bringing signaling molecules into interaction, sometimes by forming large signalosomes. Several of these scaffolds are known to polymerize. Their assemblies should therefore not be understood…
What can cells gain by using disordered, rather than folded, proteins in the architecture of their skeleton? Disordered proteins take multiple co-existing conformations, and often contain segments which act as random-walk-shaped polymers.…
Cancer cells utilize large amounts of ATP to sustain growth, relying primarily on non-oxidative, fermentative pathways for its production. In many types of cancers this leads, even in the presence of oxygen, to the secretion of carbon…
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…
The cell membrane is inherently asymmetric and heterogeneous in its composition, a feature that is crucial for its function. Using atomistic molecular dynamics simulations, the physical properties of a 3-component asymmetric mixed lipid…
Spatial organisation is a hallmark of all living cells, and recreating it in model systems is a necessary step in the creation of synthetic cells. It is therefore of both fundamental and practical interest to better understand the basic…
[abridged] Background: The distribution of chemical species in an open system at metastable equilibrium can be expressed as a function of environmental variables which can include temperature, oxidation-reduction potential and others.…
The control of biopolymer length is mediated by proteins that localize to polymer ends and regulate polymerization dynamics. Several mechanisms have been proposed to achieve end localization. Here, we propose a novel mechanism by which a…
We introduce a topology-based nonlinear network model of protein dynamics with the aim of investigating the interplay of spatial disorder and nonlinearity. We show that spontaneous localization of energy occurs generically and is a…
The secretion of vesicles for intracellular transport often rely on the aggregation of specialized membrane-bound proteins into a coat able to curve cell membranes. The nucleation and growth of a protein coat is a kinetic process that…
Flow transport in confined spaces is ubiquitous in technological processes, ranging from separation and purification of pharmaceutical ingredients by microporous membranes and drug delivery in biomedical treatment to chemical and biomass…
In 1999 Wright and Dyson highlighted the fact that large sections of the proteome of all organisms are comprised of protein sequences that lack globular folded structures under physiological conditions. Since then the biophysics community…