Related papers: Heterogeneous biological membranes regulate protei…
Cell plasma membranes display a dramatically rich structural complexity characterized by functional sub-wavelength domains with specific lipid and protein composition. Under favorable experimental conditions, patterned morphologies can also…
Multi-component membranes such as ternary mixtures of lipids and cholesterol can exhibit coexistence regions between two liquid phases. When such membranes adhere to a corrugated substrate, the phase separation process strongly depends on…
Measurements of lateral diffusion of proteins in a membrane typically assume that the movement of the protein occurs in a flat plane. Real membranes, however, are subject to thermal fluctuations, leading to movement of an inclusion into the…
We use coarse grained molecular dynamics simulations to investigate diffusion properties of sheared lipid membranes with embedded transmembrane proteins. In membranes without proteins, we find normal in-plane diffusion of lipids in all flow…
Lipid membranes regulate the flow of materials and information between cells and their organelles. Further, lipid composition and morphology can play a key role in regulating a variety of biological processes. For example, viral uptake,…
We model the spatiotemporal dynamics of cellular protein concentrations near membranes composed of different lipids using a three-variable continuum model for membrane-bound protein, cytosolic protein, and the local composition of a binary…
We report diffusion coeffcients of micron-scale liquid domains in giant unilamellar vesicles of phospholipids and cholesterol. The trajectory of each domain is tracked, and the mean square displacement grows linearly in time as expected for…
In this paper we introduce a novel method to simulate lateral diffusion of inclusions in a fluctuating membrane. The regarded systems are governed by two dynamic processes: the height fluctuations of the membrane and the diffusion of the…
Liposomes that achieve a heterogeneous and spatially organized surface through phase separation have been recognized to be a promising platform for delivery purposes. However, their design and optimization through experimentation can be…
Lipid rafts are heterogeneous dynamic lipid domains of the cell membranes that are involved in several biological processes, like protein and lipids specific transport and signaling. Our understanding of lipid raft formation is still…
Cellular differentiation is governed by gene regulatory networks, the high-dimensional stochastic biochemical systems that determine the transcriptional landscape and mediate cellular responses to signals and perturbations. Although…
A common mechanism for intracellular transport is the use of controlled deformations of the membrane to create spherical or tubular buds. While the basic physical properties of homogeneous membranes are relatively well-known, the effects of…
A physical scenario accounting for the existence of size-limited submicrometric domains in cell membranes is proposed. It is based on the numerical investigation of the counterpart, in lipidic membranes where proteins are diffusing, of the…
In eukaryotic cells, mitochondria form networks that range from highly fused interconnected structures to fragmented populations of individual organelles that undergo transient interactions. These structures can be described as temporal…
Multiscale and inhomogeneous molecular systems are challenging topics in the field of molecular simulation. In particular, modeling biological systems in the context of multiscale simulations and exploring material properties are driving a…
In order to characterize the mechanisms governing the diffusion of particles in biological scenarios, it is essential to accurately determine their diffusive properties. To do so, we propose a machine learning method to characterize…
Membrane targeting domains play crucial roles in the association of signalling molecules to the plasma membrane. For most peripheral proteins, the protein-to-membrane interaction is transient. After proteins dissociate from the membrane…
The biological function of proteins is encoded in their structure and expressed through the mediation of their dynamics. Local fluctuations are known to initiate biologically relevant pathways as they cooperatively enhance the dynamics in…
The transport of individual entities through interconnected structures is a process of practical relevance both in biology and technology. Examples are given by diffusive dynamics of molecules in porous structures. In soft environments,…
Understanding protein motion within the cell is crucial for predicting reaction rates and macromolecular transport in the cytoplasm. A key question is how crowded environments affect protein dynamics through hydrodynamic and direct…