Related papers: Weak carbohydrate-carbohydrate interactions in mem…
Sensors are the first element of the pathways that control the response of cells to their environment. After chemical, the next most important cue is mechanical, and protein complexes that produce or enable a chemical signal in response to…
Membrane proteins often form dimers and higher-order oligomers whose stability and spatial organization depend sensitively on their lipid environment. To investigate the physical principles underlying this coupling, we employ a lattice…
The cell cortex is a thin layer beneath the plasma membrane that gives animal cells mechanical resistance and drives most of their shape changes, from migration, division to multicellular morphogenesis. It is mainly composed of actin…
We study the adhesive contact between elastic solids with randomly rough, self affine fractal surfaces. We present molecular dynamics (MD) simulation results for the interfacial stress distribution and the wall-wall separation. We compare…
We investigate a continuum mechanical model for an adherent cell on two dimensional adhesive micropatterned substrates. The cell is modeled as an isotropic and homogeneous elastic material subject to uniform internal contractile stresses.…
The stabilization of macromolecules is fundamental to developing biological formulations, such as vaccines and protein therapeutics. In this study, we employ coarse grained polymer models to investigate the impact of four sugars:…
Understanding the (de)mixing behavior of multicomponent lipid bilayers is an important step towards unraveling the nature of spatial composition heterogeneities in cellular membranes and their role in biological function. We use…
The structural, electronic, and adhesive properties of Cu/SiO$_2$ interfaces are investigated using first-principles density-functional theory within the local density approximation. Interfaces between fcc Cu and $\alpha$-cristobalite(001)…
Using computer simulations, we identify the mechanisms causing aggregation and structural arrest of colloidal suspensions interacting with a short-ranged attraction at moderate and high densities. Two different non-ergodicity transitions…
The spatial organization of complex biochemical reactions is essential for the regulation of cellular processes. Membrane-less structures called foci containing high concentrations of specific proteins have been reported in a variety of…
We present a stochastic phase-field model for multicomponent lipid bilayers that explicitly accounts for the quasi-two-dimensional hydrodynamic environment unique to a thin fluid membrane immersed in aqueous solution. Dynamics over a wide…
A new discrete cohesive zone model (DCZM) is presented for modeling the interface behavior of adhesive-bonded thin laminates and sandwich panels. The proposed model treats the interface as a spring element and the adherent as a beam…
Lipid structures exhibit complex and highly dynamic lateral structure; and changes in lipid density and fluidity are believed to play an essential role in membrane targeting and function. The dynamic structure of liquids on the molecular…
We study the interaction between capillary forces and deformation in the context of a deformable capillary adhesive: a clamped, tense membrane is adhered to a rigid substrate by the surface tension of a liquid droplet. We find that the…
We determine the phase-diagram of a one-dimensional system of hard-core lattice bosons interacting via repulsive three-body interactions by analytic methods and extensive quantum Monte-Carlo simulations. Such three-body interactions can be…
The cage effect is widely accepted as the basic microscopic mechanism underlying the physics of supercooled liquids in contrast with usual liquids which are governed by molecular interactions only. In this work we implement a new toy model…
In this paper we present the results of a large-scale numerical investigation of structural properties of a model of cell membrane, simulated as a bilayer of flexible molecules in vacuum. The study was performed by carrying out extensive…
We describe the extension of a "viscous froth" model to the dynamics of a wet foam in a Hele-Shaw cell. The two-dimensional model includes the friction experienced by the soap films as they are dragged along the cell walls, while retaining…
The spatio-temporal organization of proteins and the associated morphological changes in membranes are of importance in cell signaling. Several mechanisms that promote the aggregation of proteins at low cell surface concentrations have been…
We propose a simple phenomenological model for wet granular media to take into account many particle interaction through liquid in the funicular state as well as two-body cohesive force by a liquid bridge in the pendular state. In the wet…