Related papers: Diffusion of intrinsically disordered proteins wit…
In tissues, cells in direct physical contact with each other can exchange ions or molecules via protein clusters called gap junctions that form channels across the membranes of adjacent cells. Here, we use a simplified biomimetic approach,…
Defective interfering particles (DIPs) are virus-like particles that occur naturally during virus infections. These particles are defective, lacking essential genetic materials for replication, but they can interact with the wild-type virus…
Proteins and nucleic acids can spontaneously self-assemble into membraneless droplet-like compartments, both in vitro and in vivo. A key component of these droplets are multi-valent proteins that possess several adhesive domains with…
Biomolecular condensates are essential for cellular organization and result from phase separation in systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Among various models, chemically active droplets play a significant role, consisting of…
A significant part of the proteome is composed of intrinsically-disordered proteins (IDPs). These proteins do not fold into a well-defined structure and behave like ordinary polymers. In this work we consider IDPs which have the tendency to…
In 1999 Wright and Dyson highlighted the fact that large sections of the proteome of all organisms are comprised of protein sequences that lack globular folded structures under physiological conditions. Since then the biophysics community…
Recent progresses in single particle tracking have shown evidences of non-Gaussian distribution of displacements in living cells, both near the cellular membrane and inside the cytoskeleton. A similar behavior has also been observed in…
Liquid-liquid phase separation is important across biology, physics, and materials science. Although usually studied at equilibrium, active components - such as motor proteins, enzymes, and synthetic microswimmers - are increasingly…
The passive and active motion of micron-sized tracer particles in crowded liquids and inside living biological cells is ubiquitously characterised by "viscoelastic" anomalous diffusion, in which the increments of the motion feature…
We numerically investigate normal diffusion in a two-dimensional athermal suspension of active particles undergoing motility-induced phase separation. The particles are modeled as achiral Janus disks with fixed self-propulsion speed and…
Quenched or frozen-in structural disorder is ubiquitous in real experimental systems. Much of the progress is achieved in understanding the phase separation of such systems using the diffusion-driven coarsening in Ising model with quenched…
Conformational changes drive protein function, including catalysis, allostery, and signaling. X-ray diffuse scattering from protein crystals has frequently been cited as a probe of these correlated motions, with significant potential to…
In bacteria, regulatory proteins search for a specific DNA binding target via "facilitated diffusion": a series of rounds of 3D diffusion in the cytoplasm, and 1D linear diffusion along the DNA contour. Using large scale Brownian dynamics…
Glassy, nonexponential relaxations in globular proteins are typically attributed to conformational behaviors that are missing from intrinsically disordered proteins. Yet, we show that single molecules of a disordered-protein construct…
The study of interactions between biomimetic membranes and micron-sized particles is crucial for understanding various biological processes. Here, we control microparticle spontaneous engulfment by giant lipid vesicles by tuning particle…
In this paper we propose a straightforward operational definition of variants of disordered proteins, taking the human proteome as a case study. The focus is on a distinction between mostly unstructured proteins and proteins which contain…
We report new dynamical modes in confined soft granular flows, such as stochastic jetting and dripping, with no counterpart in continuum viscous fluids. The new modes emerge as a result of the propagation of the chaotic behaviour of…
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…
The cellular environment, characterized by its intricate composition and spatial organization, hosts a variety of organelles, ranging from membrane-bound ones to membraneless structures that are formed through liquid-liquid phase…
Liquid-liquid phase separation plays a major role in the formation and maintenance of various membrane-less subcellular structures in the cytoplasm and nucleus of cells. Biological condensates contain enhanced concentrations of proteins and…