Related papers: Molecular sorting on a fluctuating membrane
If colloidal solute particles are suspended in a solvent close to its critical point, they act as cavities in a fluctuating medium and thereby restrict and modify the fluctuation spectrum in a way which depends on their relative…
Cell plasma membranes display a dramatically rich structural complexity characterized by functional sub-wavelength domains with specific lipid and protein composition. Under favorable experimental conditions, patterned morphologies can also…
We investigate the phase behaviour of mixtures of two populations of colloidal particles dispersed in a binary solvent system near its critical composition. The surfaces of particles are chemically modified to elicit a specific solvent…
I show that cooperative exclusion processes with selective kinetic constraints exhibit fluctuation-induced forces that can be attractive or repulsive, depending on the density of boundary reservoirs, when their density-dependent diffusion…
Particles diffusing near interfaces face anisotropic resistance to motion due to hydrodynamic interactions. While this has been extensively studied near \textit{hard} interfaces since the works of Lorentz and Brenner, our understanding of…
The importance of molecular-scale forces in sculpting biological form and function has been acknowledged for more than a century. Accounting for forces in biology is a problem that lies at the intersection of soft condensed matter physics,…
We consider an ensemble of spherical colloidal particles immersed in a near-critical solvent such as a binary liquid mixture close to its critical demixing point. The emerging long-ranged fluctuations of the corresponding order parameter of…
Bacteria can adjust the structure of colonies and biofilms to enhance their survival rate under external stress. Here, we explore the link between bacterial interaction forces and colony structure. We show that the activity of extracellular…
Phase-separated biomolecular condensates with liquid-like properties play a key role in the organization and compartmentalization of the intracellular environment. Condensate-mediated capillary forces acting on membranes drive…
We study theoretically and experimentally the solvent-mediated critical Casimir force acting on colloidal particles immersed in a binary liquid mixture of water and 2,6-lutidine and close to substrates which are chemically patterned with…
A coarse-grained computational model is used to investigate the effect of a fluctuating fluid membrane on the dynamics of patchy-particle assembly into virus capsid-like cores. Results from simulations for a broad range of parameters are…
In this work, the calculation of Casimir forces across thin DNA films is carried out based on the Lifshitz theory. The variations of Casimir forces due to the DNA thicknesses, volume fractions of containing water, covering media and…
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…
Thermal fluctuations are important for amphiphilic bilayer membranes since typical bending stiffnesses can be a few $k_B T$. The rod-like constituent molecules are generically tilted with respect to the local normal for packing reasons. We…
The biological function of membranes is closely related to their softness, which is often studied through the membranes' thermally-driven fluctuations. The analysis commonly assumes that the relaxation rate of a pure bending deformation is…
Fluctuation-induced forces occur generically when long-ranged correlations (e.g., in fluids) are confined by external bodies. In classical systems, such correlations require specific conditions, e.g., a medium close to a critical point. On…
Percolation and critical phenomena show common features such as scaling and universality. Colloidal particles, immersed in a solvent close to criticality, experience long-range effective forces, named critical Casimir forces. %These…
We present both analytical and numerical results for the behaviour of the Casimir force in a Ginzburg-Landau type model of a film of a simple fluid or binary liquid mixture in which the confining surfaces are strongly adsorbing but…
The self-organization of proteins into enriched compartments and the formation of complex patterns are crucial processes for life on the cellular level. Liquid-liquid phase separation is one mechanism for forming such enriched compartments.…
Membrane shape fluctuations induce attractive interactions between rigid inclusions. Previous analytical studies showed that the fluctuation-induced pair interactions are rather small compared to thermal energies, but also that multi-body…