Related papers: Active thermodynamic force driven mitochondrial al…
It is now widely recognized that mechanical interactions between cells play a crucial role in epithelial morphogenesis, yet understanding the mechanisms through which stress and deformation affect cell behavior remains an open problem due…
In living systems, collective molecular behavior is driven by thermodynamic forces in the form of chemical gradients. Leveraging recent advances in the field of nonequilibrium physics, I show that increasing the thermodynamic force alone…
The biological cell exhibits a fantastic range of behaviors, but ultimately these are governed by a handful of physical and chemical principles. Here we explore simple theory, known for decades and based on the simple thermodynamics of…
Eukaryotic cells possess motility mechanisms allowing them not only to self-propel but also to exert forces on obstacles (to push) and to carry cargoes (to pull). To study the inherent asymmetry between active pushing and pulling we model a…
Brownian clocks are biomolecular networks that can count time. A paradigmatic example are proteins that go through a cycle thus regulating some oscillatory behaviour in a living system. Typically, such a cycle requires free energy often…
Six thermo-activated transient receptor potential (TRP) channels are the molecular basis of the thermosensation for mammals. But the molecular source of their gating remains unknown. In the Letter, we suggest a physically based model for…
We derive a formulation of the First Law of nonequilibrium thermodynamics for biological information-processing systems by partitioning entropy in the Second Law into microscopic and mesoscopic components and by assuming that natural…
F1F0 ATP synthase (ATPase) either facilitates the synthesis of ATP in the mitochondrial membranes and bacterial inner membranes in a process driven by the proton moving force (pmf), or uses the energy from ATP hydrolysis to pump protons…
A living cell actively generates traction forces on its environment with its actin cytoskeleton. These forces deform the cell elastic substrate which, in turn, affects the traction forces exerted by the cell and can consequently modify the…
Living systems at the molecular scale are composed of many constituents with strong and heterogeneous interactions, operating far from equilibrium, and subject to strong fluctuations. These conditions pose significant challenges to…
Understanding the role of non-equilibrium driving in self-organization is crucial for developing a predictive description of biological systems, yet it is impeded by their complexity. The actin cytoskeleton serves as a paradigm for how…
Chemotactic active particles, such as bacteria and cells, exhibit an adaptive run-and-tumble motion, giving rise to complex emergent behaviors in response to external chemical fields. This motion is generated by the conversion of internal…
Actin is a globular protein which forms long polar filaments in eukaryotic. The actin filaments play roles of cytoskeleton, motility units , information processing and learning. We model actin filament as a double chain of finite state…
Molecular motors are in charge of almost every process in the life cycle of cells, such as protein synthesis, DNA replication, and cell locomotion, hence being of crucial importance for understanding the cellular dynamics. However, given…
How thousands of microtubules and molecular motors self-organize into spindles remains poorly understood. By combining static, nanometer-resolution, large-scale electron tomography reconstructions and dynamic, optical-resolution, polarized…
We analyze a mesoscopic conductor autonomously performing a thermodynamically useful task, such as cooling or producing electrical power, in a part of the system -- the working substance -- by exploiting another terminal or set of terminals…
In living cells, oscillation of the concentration of cytosolic Ca2+ is an important and pervasive signal for the intercellular and intracellular information conduction. To generate the oscillation, the hydrolysis of ATP is always needed.…
ATP synthases utilize a proton motive force to synthesize ATP. In reverse, these membrane-embedded enzymes can also hydrolyze ATP to pump protons over the membrane. To prevent wasteful ATP hydrolysis, distinct control mechanisms exist for…
Mitochondria are the power house of living cells, where the synthesis of the chemical "energy currency" adenosine triphosphate (ATP) occurs. Oxidative phosphorylation by a series of membrane protein complexes I to IV, that is, the electron…
Basing our arguments on the theory of active liquid crystals, we demonstrate both analytically and numerically, that the activity can induce an effective free energy which enhances ordering in extensile systems of active rods and in…