Related papers: A unified analytical theory of heteropolymers for …
Phase separation of several different overall neutral polyampholyte species (with zero net charge) is studied in solution with two oppositely charged ion species that can form ion-pairs through an association reaction. A field theory…
Based on the thermodynamic perturbation theory (TPT) and the Random phase approximation (RPA), we present a statistical theory of solutions of electrically neutral soft molecules, every of which is modelled as a set of sites that interact…
The recently developed Perturbed-Chain Statistical Associating Fluid Theory (PC-SAFT) is investigated for a wide range of model parameters including the parameter m representing the chain length and the thermodynamic temperature T and…
DNA is now firmly established as a versatile and robust platform for achieving synthetic nanostructures. While the folding of single molecules into complex structures is routinely achieved through engineering basepair sequences, much less…
The rapid adhesion of motile bacteria from dilute suspensions poses a fundamental non-equilibrium problem: hydrodynamic interactions bias bacterial motion near surfaces without generating stable confinement, while electrostatic interactions…
Liquid liquid phase separation (LLPS) of proteins is an intracellular process that is widely used by cells for many purposes. In living cells (in vivo), LLPS occurs in complex and crowded environments. Amino acids (AAs) are vital components…
We study a solution of long polyanions (PA) with shorter polycations (PC) and focus on the role of Coulomb interaction. A good example is solutions of DNA and PC which are widely studied for gene therapy. In the solution, each PA attracts…
We develop a first-principle equation of state of salt-free polyelectrolyte solution in the limit of infinitely long flexible polymer chains in the framework of a field-theoretical formalism beyond the linear Debye-Hueckel theory and…
By means of multicanonical computer simulations, we investigate thermodynamic properties of the aggregation of interacting semiflexible polymers. We analyze a mesoscopic bead-stick model, where nonbonded monomers interact via Lennard-Jones…
The Flory-Huggins theory describes the phase separation of solutions containing polymers. Although it finds widespread application from polymer physics to materials science to biology, the concentrations that coexist in separate phases at…
Liquid-liquid phase separation underlies phenomena ranging from protein condensate formation to the phase coexistence of synthetic polymers. Although the random phase approximation (RPA) is widely used to predict such phase behavior, its…
The nature of electrostatic interactions involving polyanions modulate the properties of both synthetic and biological macromolecules. Although intensely studied for decades the interplay of many length scales has prevented a complete…
In view of the notorious complexity of protein--protein interactions, simplified models of proteins treated as patchy particles offer a promising strategy to obtain insight into the mechanism of crystallization. Here we report…
The condensation of biomolecules into biomolecular condensates via liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) is a ubiquitous mechanism that drives cellular organization. To enable these functions, biomolecules have evolved to drive LLPS and…
Chemically-responsive polymers are macromolecules that respond to local variations of the chemical composition of the solution by changing their conformation, with notable examples including polyelectrolytes, proteins and DNA. The polymer…
Polymer electrolytes (PEs) are promising candidates for use in next-generation high-voltage batteries, as they possess advantageous elastic and electrochemical properties. However, PEs still suffer from low ionic conductivity and need to be…
The solvent quality determines the collapsed or the expanded state of a polymer. For example, a polymer dissolved in a poor solvent collapses, whereas in a good solvent it opens up. While this standard understanding is generally valid,…
Demixing of binary liquids is a ubiquitous transition, which is explained using a well-established thermodynamic formalism that requires equality of intensive thermodynamics parameters across the phase boundaries. Demixing transitions also…
We introduce a microscopic model of a lipid with a charged headgroup and flexible hydrophobic tails, a neutral solvent, and counter ions. Short-ranged interactions between hydrophilic and hydrophobic moieties are included as are the Coulomb…
The associative interaction, such as hydrogen bonding, can bring about versatile functionalities to polymer systems, which has been investigated by tremendous researches, but the fundamental understanding on association process is still…