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The mammalian cell membrane is embedded with biomolecular condensates of protein and lipid clusters, which interact with an underlying viscoelastic cytoskeleton network to organize the cell surface and mechanically interact with the…
Phase separation of multicomponent lipid membranes is characterized by the nucleation and coarsening of circular membrane domains that grow slowly in time as $\sim t^{1/3}$, following classical theories of coalescence and Ostwald ripening.…
The eukaryotic cell membrane is connected to a dense actin rich cortex. We present FCS and STED experiments showing that dense membrane bound actin networks have severe influence on lipid phase separation. A minimal actin cortex was bound…
Achieving control and tunability of lyotropic materials has been a long-standing goal of liquid crystal research. Here we show that the elasticity of a liquid crystal system consisting of a dense suspension of semiflexible biopolymers can…
In this article, we construct and analyze models of anisotropic crosslinked polymers employing tools from the theory of liquid crystal elastomers. The anisotropy of these systems stems from the presence of rigid-rod molecular units in the…
The spatio-temporal organization of proteins and the associated morphological changes in membranes are of importance in cell signaling. Several mechanisms that promote the aggregation of proteins at low cell surface concentrations have been…
We propose a class of microstructurally informed models for the linear elastic mechanical behavior of cross-linked polymer networks such as the actin cytoskeleton. Salient features of the models include the possibility to represent…
Actin is a key component of the cytoskeleton, which plays central roles in cell motility, division, growth, and tensile strength. To enable this wide range of transient mechanical processes and properties, networks of actin filaments…
Semiflexible polymers such as filamentous actin play a vital role in the mechanical behavior of cells, yet the basic properties of cross-linked F-actin networks remain poorly understood. To address this issue, we have performed numerical…
We study the dynamic structure of lipid domain inclusions embedded within a phase-separated reconstituted lipid bilayer in contact with a swarming flow of gliding filamentous actin. Passive circular domains transition into highly-deformed…
Cell shape changes, essential for processes such as motility or division, are controlled by the actomyosin cortex that actively remodels biological membranes. Their mechanisms can be deciphered in___vitro using biomimetic reconstituted…
Dynamic lateral transport of lipids, proteins, and self-assembled structures in biomembranes plays crucial roles in diverse cellular processes. In this study, we perform a coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulation on a vesicle composed…
A model of lipid bilayers made of a mixture of two lipids with different average compositions on both leaflets, is developed. A Landau hamiltonian describing the lipid-lipid interactions on each leaflet, with two lipidic fields $\psi_1$ and…
The mechanical properties of polymer gels based on cytoskeleton proteins (e.g. actin) have been studied extensively due to their significant role in biological cell motility and in maintaining the cell's structural integrity. Microrheology…
The actin cytoskeleton is a key component in the machinery of eukaryotic cells, and it selfassembles out of equilibrium into a wide variety of biologically crucial structures. While the molecular mechanisms involved are well characterized,…
Motivated by recent experiments showing nonlinear elasticity of in vitro networks of the biopolymer actin cross-linked with filamin, we present an effective medium theory of flexibly cross-linked stiff polymer networks. We model such…
Mechanochemical simulations of actomyosin networks are traditionally based on one-dimensional models of actin filaments having zero width. Here, and in the follow up paper, approaches are presented for more efficient modelling which…
Branched actin networks exert pushing forces in eukaryotic cells, and adapt their stiffness to their environment. The physical basis for their mechanics and adaptability is however not understood. Indeed, here we show that their high…
Computer simulations can aid in understanding how collective materials properties emerge from interactions between simple constituents. Here, we introduce a coarse-grained model that enables simulation of networks of actin filaments, myosin…
Unravelling the physical mechanisms behind the organisation of lipid domains is a central goal in cell biology and membrane biophysics. Previous studies on cells and model lipid bilayers featuring phase-separated domains found an intricate…