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Induced by proteins within the cell membrane or by differential growth, heating, or swelling, spontaneous curvatures can drastically affect the morphology of thin bodies and induce mechanical instabilities. Yet, the interaction of…
Cellular uptake through the lipid membranes plays an important role in adsorbing nutrients and fighting infection and can be used for drug delivery and nanomedicine developments. Endocytosis is one of the known pathways of the cellular…
Narrow membrane tubes are commonly pulled out from the surface of phospholipid vesicles using forces applied either through laser or magnetic tweezers or through the action of processive motor proteins. Recent examples have emerged where…
Protein structure prediction and folding are fundamental to understanding biology, with recent deep learning advances reshaping the field. Diffusion-based generative models have revolutionized protein design, enabling the creation of novel…
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…
The deformability of vesicles critically influences their engulfment by lipid membranes, a process central to endocytosis, viral entry, drug delivery, and intercellular transport. While theoretical models have long predicted this influence,…
Biological membranes typically contain a large number of different components dispersed in small concentrations in the main membrane phase, including proteins, sugars, and lipids of varying geometrical properties. Most of these components…
Transport of microscopic objects across biological membranes usually involves membrane deformation to enclose the object followed by detachment of the engulfed particle. However, in artificial membranes, this last topological remodelling…
Cell shape changes are largely controlled by the actin cytoskeleton, a dynamic filament network beneath the plasma membrane. Several cell types can form extended free-standing protrusions not supported by an extracellular substrate or…
The curvature sensitive localization of proteins on membranes is vital for many cell biological processes. Coarse-grained models are routinely employed to study the curvature sensing phenomena and membrane morphology at the length scale of…
Experiments of in vitro formation of blood vessels show that cells randomly spread on a gel matrix autonomously organize to form a connected vascular network. We propose a simple model which reproduces many features of the biological…
Nearly a quarter of genomic sequences and almost half of all receptors that are likely to be targets for drug design are integral membrane proteins. Understanding the detailed mechanisms of the folding of membrane proteins is a largely…
The assembly of banana-shaped rodlike proteins on membranes, and the associated membrane shape transformations, are investigated by analytical theory and coarse-grained simulations. The membrane-mediated interactions between two…
We study a physical model for the formation of bud-like invaginations on fluid membranes under tension, and apply this model to caveolae formation. We demonstrate that budding can be driven by membrane-bound inclusions (proteins) provided…
The shape transformations of fluid membranes induced by curved protein rods are studied using meshless membrane simulations. The rod assembly at low rod density induces a flat membrane tube and oblate vesicle. It is found that the…
Cells offer numerous inspiring examples where proteins and membranes combine to form complex structures that are key to intracellular compartmentalization, cargo transport, and specialization of cell morphology. Despite this wealth of…
Endothelial cells are responsible for the formation of the capillary blood vessel network. We describe a system of endothelial cells by means of two-dimensional molecular dynamics simulations of point-like particles. Cells' motion is…
A flexible membrane deforming its shape in time can self-propel in a viscous fluid. Alternatively, if the membrane is anchored, its deformation will lead to fluid transport. Past work in this area focused on situations where the deformation…
In this survey article, we present two applications of surface curvatures in theoretical physics. The first application arises from biophysics in the study of the shape of cell vesicles involving the minimization of a mean curvature type…
We discuss the characteristics of the patterns of the vascular networks in a mathematical model for angiogenesis. Based on recent in vitro experiments, this mathematical model assumes that the elongation and bifurcation of blood vessels…