Related papers: Using Single Molecule Imaging to Explore Intracell…
Biomolecular condensates are formed via liquid-liquid phase separation of proteins, often together with nucleic acids, typically driven by interactions between low-affinity binding sites. The computational study of such condensates that…
Stochastic models of reaction-diffusion systems are important for the study of biochemical reaction networks where species are present in low copy numbers or if reactions are highly diffusion limited. In living cells many such systems…
Bacteria can form a great variety of spatially heterogeneous cell density patterns, ranging from simple concentric rings to dynamical spiral waves appearing in growing colonies. These pattern formation phenomena are important as they…
Heterogeneity in biological molecules, resulting in molecule-to-molecule variations in their dynamics and function, is an emerging theme. To elucidate the consequences of heterogeneous behavior at the single molecule level, we propose an…
Cell motility in dense cell collectives is pivotal in various diseases like cancer metastasis and asthma. A central aspect in these phenomena is the heterogeneity in cell motility, but identifying the motility of individual cells is…
Conventional analysis of in vitro assays of motor proteins rests on the assumption that all proteins with the same chemical composition function identically; however molecule-to-molecule variation is often seen even in well-controlled…
Biomolecular condensates form on timescales of seconds in cells upon environmental or compositional changes. Condensate formation is thus argued to act as a mechanism for sensing such changes and quickly initiating downstream processes,…
The movement of molecules inside living cells is a fundamental feature of biological processes. The ability to both observe and analyse the details of molecular diffusion in vivo at the single molecule and single cell level can add…
Over the past decade, advances in super-resolution microscopy and particle-based modeling have driven an intense interest in investigating spatial heterogeneity at the level of single molecules in cells. Remarkably, it is becoming clear…
Many cellular processes rely on the cell's ability to transport material to and from the nucleus. Networks consisting of many microtubules and actin filaments are key to this transport. Recently, the inhibition of intracellular transport…
To maintain homeostasis, living cells process information with networks of interacting molecules. Traditional models for cellular information processing have focused on networks of chemical reactions between molecules. Here, we describe how…
Resolving the structural variability of proteins is often key to understanding the structure-function relationship of those macromolecular machines. Single particle analysis using Cryogenic electron microscopy (CryoEM), combined with…
Biomolecular condensates play a crucial role in the spatial organization of living matter. These membrane-less organelles, resulting from liquid-liquid phase separation, operate far from thermodynamic equilibrium, with their size and…
Single-molecule biophysics has transformed our understanding of the fundamental molecular processes involved in living biological systems, but also of the fascinating physics of life. Far more exotic than a collection of exemplars of soft…
The spread of microbial infections is governed by the self-organization of bacteria on surfaces. Limitations of live imaging techniques make collective behaviors in clinically relevant systems challenging to quantify. Here, novel…
A protein undergoes conformational dynamics with multiple time scales, which results in fluctuating enzyme activities. Recent studies in single molecule enzymology have observe this "age-old" dynamic disorder phenomenon directly. However,…
We review theoretical approaches, experiments and numerical simulations that have been recently proposed to investigate the folding problem in single-domain proteins. From a theoretical point of view, we emphasize the energy landscape…
Single-particle tracking (SPT) grants unprecedented insight into cellular function at the molecular scale [1]. Throughout the cell, the movement of single-molecules is generally heterogeneous and complex. Hence, there is an imperative to…
Living organisms rely on molecular networks, such as gene circuits and signaling pathways, for information processing and robust decision-making in crowded, noisy environments. Recent advances show that interacting biomolecules…
Many cell functions are accomplished thanks to intracellular transport mechanisms of macromolecules along filaments. Molecular motors such as dynein or kinesin are proteins playing a primary role in these processes. The behavior of such…