Related papers: Mechanics of diffusion-mediated budding and implic…
The envelopes covering bacterial cytoplasm possess remarkable elastic properties. They are rigid enough to resist large pressures while being flexible enough to adapt to growth under environmental constraints. Similarly, the virus shells…
We study the shapes of pored membranes within the framework of the Helfrich theory under the constraints of fixed area and pore size. We show that the mean curvature term leads to a budding- like structure, while the Gaussian curvature term…
Diverse processes--e.g. bioremediation, biofertilization, and microbial drug delivery--rely on bacterial migration in disordered, three-dimensional (3D) porous media. However, how pore-scale confinement alters bacterial motility is unknown…
Curvature in biological membranes can be generated by a variety of different molecular mechanisms such as protein scaffolding, lipid or protein asymmetry, cytoskeletal forces, etc. These mechanisms have the net effect of generating stresses…
Phagocytosis is the process of engulfment and internalization of comparatively large particles by the cell, that plays a central role in the functioning of our immune system. We study the process of phagocytosis by considering a simplified…
We present a generic mechanism by which reproducing microorganisms, with a diffusivity that depends on the local population density, can form stable patterns. It is known that a decrease of swimming speed with density can promote separation…
Since its foundations, more than one hundred years ago, the field of structural biology has strived to understand and analyze the properties of molecules and their interactions by studying the structure that they take in 3D space. However,…
Biomolecules, such as proteins and RNAs, can phase separate in the cytoplasm of cells to form biomolecular condensates. Such condensates are liquid-like droplets that can wet biological surfaces such as membranes. Many molecules that…
Bacterial swarming is a rapid mass-migration, in which thousands of cells spread collectively to colonize a surface. Physically, swarming is a natural example of active particles that use energy to generate motion. Accordingly,…
Diffusion guidance is a powerful technique that enables controllable and high-fidelity sample generation with diffusion models. At a high level, it modifies the score function by incorporating a guidance term that steers the generative…
We present an analytically solvable model for self-assembly of a molecular complex on a filament. The process is driven by a seed molecule that undergoes facilitated diffusion, which is a search strategy that combines diffusion in…
A stochastic model for the growth of a virus in a cell population is introduced. The virus has two ways of spreading: either by allowing its host cell to live on and duplicate, or else by multiplying in large numbers within the host cell…
The migratory dynamics of cells can be influenced by the complex micro-environment through which they move. It remains unclear how the motility machinery of confined cells responds and adapts to their micro-environment. Here, we propose a…
Microscopic organisms, such as bacteria, have the ability of colonizing surfaces and developing biofilms that can determine diseases and infections. Most bacteria secrete a significant amount of extracellular polymer substances that are…
The interplay of membrane proteins is vital for many biological processes, such as cellular transport, cell division, and signal transduction between nerve cells. Theoretical considerations have led to the idea that the membrane itself…
A thin-walled tube, e.g., a drinking straw, manifests an instability when bent by localizing the curvature change in a small region. This instability has been extensively studied since the seminal work of Brazier nearly a century ago.…
Airborne viruses, such as influenza, tuberculosis, and SARS-CoV-2, are transmitted through virus-laden particles expelled when an infectious person sneezes, coughs, talks, or breathes. These virus-laden particles are more highly…
We examine the spread of an infectious disease, such as one that is caused by a respiratory virus, with two distinct modes of transmission. To do this, we consider a susceptible--infected--susceptible (SIS) disease on a hypergraph, which…
Immotile microbes inhabit nearly every environment on Earth, from soils and sediments to food matrices -- yet how they disperse through these physically confining environments is poorly understood. Here, we show that immotile microbial…
A time- and space-discrete model for the growth of a rapidly saturating local biological population $N(x,t)$ is derived from a hierarchical random deposition process previously studied in statistical physics. Two biologically relevant…