Related papers: Membrane Thickness Sensitivity of Avian Prestin: I…

Outer hair cells in the inner ear is important for the sensitivity, frequency selectivity, and dynamic range of the mammalian ear. Such a physiological role of outer hair cells is thought to be based an amplifying effect of those cells,…

While the mammalian- and the avian inner ears have well defined tonotopic organizations as well as hair cells specialized for motile and sensing roles, the structural organization of the avian ear is different from its mammalian cochlear…

In the framework of a phase field model of a single cell crawling on a substrate, we investigate how the properties of the cell membrane affect the shape and motility of the cell. Since the membrane influences the cell dynamics on multiple…

The migration of cells through tight constricting spaces or along fibrous tracks in tissues is important for biological processes, such as embryogenesis, wound healing, and cancer metastasis, and depends on the mechanical properties of the…

Recent research has shown that motile cells can adapt their mode of propulsion to the mechanical properties of the environment in which they find themselves--crawling in some environments while swimming in others. The latter can involve…

Membrane proteins are crucial in regulating biomembrane shapes and controlling the dynamic changes in membrane morphology during essential cellular processes. These proteins can localize to regions with their preferred curvatures (curvature…

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…

Adhesive cell-substrate interactions are crucial for cell motility and are responsible for the necessary traction that propels cells. These interactions can also change the shape of the cell, analogous to liquid droplet wetting on adhesive…

The function of membrane-embedded proteins such as ion channels depends crucially on their conformation. We demonstrate how conformational changes in asymmetric membrane proteins may be inferred from measurements of their diffusion. Such…

Biomembranes are thin capacitors with the unique feature of displaying phase transitions in a physiologically relevant regime. We investigate the voltage and lateral pressure dependence of their capacitance close to their chain melting…

Interactions mediated by the cell membrane between inclusions, such as membrane proteins or antimicrobial peptides, play important roles in their biological activity. They also constitute a fascinating challenge for physicists, since they…

The outer hair cell (OHC) of the organ of Corti underlies a mechanically based process that enhances hearing, termed cochlear amplification. The cell possesses a unique motor protein, prestin, which senses voltage and consequently changes…

The ability of cells to sense and respond to the mechanical properties of their environments is fundamental to a range of cellular behaviours, with substrate stiffness increasingly being found to be a key signalling factor. Although active…

Cell membranes are studded with protrusions that were thoroughly analyzed with electron microscopy. However, the nanometer-scale three-dimensional motions generated by cell membranes to fit the topography of foreign surfaces and initiate…

We investigated melting transitions in biological membranes in their native state that include their membrane proteins. These membranes originated from \textit{E. coli}, \textit{B. subtilis}, lung surfactant and nerve tissue from the spinal…

Tuning of active prestress e.g. through activity of molecular motors constitutes a powerful cellular tool to adjust cellular stiffness through nonlinear material properties. Understanding this tool is an important prerequisite for our…

The dynamics of a membrane coupled to an active fluid on top of a substrate is considered theoretically. It is assumed that the director field of the active fluid has rotational symmetry in the membrane plane. This situation is likely to be…

Biological membranes are able to exhibit various morphology due to the fluidity of the lipid molecules within the monolayers. The shape transformation of membranes has been well described by the classical Helfrich theory, which consists…

Active contributions to fluctuations are a direct consequence of metabolic energy consumption in living cells. Such metabolic processes continuously create active forces, which deform the membrane to control motility, proliferation as well…

Membrane deformation inside living cells is crucial for the proper shaping of various intracellular organelles and is necessary during the fission/fusion processes that allow membrane recycling and transport (e.g. endocytosis). Proteins…