Related papers: Interplay between cortical adhesion and membrane b…
In biological tissues, it is now well-understood that mechanical cues are a powerful mechanism for pattern regulation. While much work has focused on interactions between cells and external substrates, recent experiments suggest that cell…
Shape transformations of flat bilayer membranes and vesicles induced by hydrolysis and condensation reactions of amphiphilic molecules are studied using coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations. The hydrolysis and condensation…
We investigate a model of an asymmetric bilayer consisting of sphigomyelin, phosphatidylcholine, and cholesterol in the outer leaflet, and phosphatidyl\-ethanolamine, (PE), phosphatidylserine, and cholesterol in the inner leaflet.…
Biological cells are able to generate intricate structures and respond to external stimuli, sculpting their membrane from within. Simplified biomimetic systems can aid in understanding the principles which govern these shape changes and…
In growing plant cells, parallel ordering of microtubules (MTs) along the inner surface of the cell membrane influences the direction of cell expansion and thereby plant morphology. For correct expansion of organs that primarily grow by…
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…
Microphase separation of membrane components is thought to play an important role in many physiological processes, from cell signaling to endocytosis and cellular trafficking. Here, we study how variations in the membrane composition can be…
We study a model of contraction-based cell motility inside a microchannel to investigate the regulation of cell polarization and motion by the mechanical resistance of the environment. A positive feedback between the asymmetry of the…
Coordinated cellular movements are key processes in tissue morphogenesis. Using a cell-based modeling approach we study the dynamics of epithelial layers lining surfaces with constant and varying curvature. We demonstrate that extrinsic…
Eukaryote cells have a flexible shape, which dynamically changes according to the function performed by the cell. One mechanism for deforming the cell membrane into the desired shape is through the expression of curved membrane proteins.…
Brain organoids recapitulate a number of brain properties, including neuronal diversity. However, do they recapitulate brain structure? Using a hydrodynamic description for cell nuclei as particles interacting initially via an effective,…
Biological adhesion is a critical mechanical function of complex organisms operating at multiple scales. At the cellular scale, cell-cell adhesion is remarkably tunable to enable both cohesion and malleability during development,…
Eukaryotic cells adhere to extracellular matrix during the normal development of the organism, forming static adhesion as well as during cell motility. We study this process by considering a simplified coarse-grained model of a vesicle that…
Lateral organization in the plane of the plasma membrane is an important driver of biological processes. The past dozen years have seen increasing experimental support for the notion that lipid organization plays an important role in…
In clathrin-mediated endocytosis (CME), clathrin and various adaptor proteins coat a patch of the plasma membrane, which is reshaped to form a budded vesicle. Experimental studies have demonstrated that elevated membrane tension can inhibit…
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…
Using a microfluidic trap, we study the behavior of individual phospholipid vesicles in contact with fatty acids. We show that spontaneous fatty acids insertion inside the bilayer is controlled by the vesicle size, osmotic pressure…
Many organs of higher organisms are heavily branched structures and arise by an at first sight similar process of branching morphogenesis. Yet the regulatory components and local interactions that have been identified differ greatly in…
Cellular membranes are elastic lipid bilayers that contain a variety of proteins, including ion channels, receptors, and scaffolding proteins. These proteins are known to diffuse in the plane of the membrane and to influence the bending of…
The shapes of cell membranes are largely regulated by membrane associated, curvature active, proteins. We use a numerical model of the membrane with elongated membrane inclusions, recently developed by us, which posses spontaneous…