Related papers: Thermodynamics of Wetting, Prewetting and Surface …
We study the indentation of a free-standing lipid membrane suspended over a nanopore on a hydrophobic substrate by means of molecular dynamics simulations. We find that in the course of indentation, the membrane bends at the point of…
The interactions of a hydrophilic surface with water can significantly influence the characteristics of the liquid water interface. In this manuscript, we explore this influence by studying the molecular structure of liquid water at a…
A hydrophilic liquid, such as water, forms hydrogen bonds with a hydrophilic substrate. The strength and locality of the hydrogen bonding interactions prohibit slip of the liquid over the substrate. The question then arises how the contact…
Cell polarization underlies many cellular processes, such as differentiation, migration, and budding. Many living cells, such as budding yeast and fission yeast, use cytoskeletal structures to actively transport proteins to one location on…
Cell membranes interact with a myriad of curvature-active proteins that control membrane morphology and are responsible for mechanosensation and mechanotransduction. Some of these proteins, such as those containing BAR domains, are curved…
Lipid membranes, the barrier defining living cells and many of their sub-compartments, bind to a wide variety of nano- and micro-meter sized objects. In the presence of strong adhesive forces, membranes can strongly deform and wrap the…
New experiments for water at the surface of proteins at very low temperature display intriguing dynamic behaviors. The extreme conditions of these experiments make it difficult to explore the wide range of thermodynamic state points needed…
We develop theory and computational methods to investigate particle inclusions embedded within curved lipid bilayer membranes. We consider the case of spherical lipid vesicles where inclusion particles are coupled through (i) intramembrane…
To advance understanding of cellular metabolism and reduce batch-to-batch variability in cell culture processes, this study introduces a multi-scale hybrid modeling framework designed to simulate and predict the dynamic behavior of CHO cell…
Cellular membranes exhibit a large variety of shapes, strongly coupled to their function. Many biological processes involve dynamic reshaping of membranes, usually mediated by proteins. This interaction works both ways: while proteins…
The thermodynamics of proteins indicate that folding/unfolding takes place either through stable intermediates or through a two-state process without intermediates. The rather short folding times of the two-state process indicate that…
Cellulose is one of the most versatile substances in the world. Its immense variety of applications was in recent years complemented by interesting nanotechnological applications. The fabrication of complex cellulose-based materials asks…
Lipid phase heterogeneity in the plasma membrane is thought to be crucial for many aspects of cell signaling, but the physical basis of participating membrane domains such as "lipid rafts" remains controversial. Here we consider a lattice…
While the behavior of vesicles in thermodynamic equilibrium has been studied extensively, how active forces control vesicle shape transformations is not understood. Here, we combine theory and simulations to study the shape behavior of…
The process of protein folding from an unfolded state to a biologically active, folded conformation is governed by many parameters e.g the sequence of amino acids, intermolecular interactions, the solvent, temperature and chaperon…
We perform three-dimensional direct numerical simulations of surface-driven convection near the temperature of maximum density $\tilde T_{md}$. A dynamic surface boundary condition couples heat flux through the surface to the induced…
We consider a mixture of one neutral and two oppositely charged types of molecules confined to a surface. Using analytical techniques and molecular dynamics simulations, we construct the phase diagram of the system and exhibit the…
We use molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to study surface-directed spinodal decomposition (SDSD) in unstable binary ($AB$) fluid mixtures at wetting surfaces. The thickness of the wetting layer $R_1$ grows with time $t$ as a power-law…
Modeling membrane interactions with arbitrarily shaped colloidal particles, such as environmental micro- and nanoplastics, at the cell scale remains particularly challenging, owing to the complexity of particle geometries and the need to…
We explain the physical basis of a model for small globular proteins with water interactions. The water is supposed to access the protein interior in an "all-or-none" manner during the unfolding of the protein chain. As a consequence of…