Related papers: Chemically active droplets in crowded environments
Inside every living cell is the cytoplasm: a fluid mixture of thousands of different macromolecules, predominantly proteins. This mixture is where most of the biochemistry occurs that enables living cells to function, and it is perhaps the…
We present a model for diffusion in a molecularly crowded environment. The model consists of random barriers in percolation network. Random walks in the presence of slowly moving barriers show normal diffusion for long times, but anomalous…
Transport through nano-channels plays an important role in many biological processes and industrial applications. Gaining insights into the functioning of biological transport processes and the design of man-made nano-devices requires an…
Distance control in many-particle systems is a fundamental problem in nature. This becomes particularly relevant in systems of active agents, which can sense their environment and react by adjusting their direction of motion. We employ…
Evidence accumulated over the past decade provides support for liquid-liquid phase separation as the mechanism underlying the formation of biomolecular condensates, which include not only membraneless organelles such as nucleoli and RNA…
We derive an analytical pair potential of mean force for Brownian molecules in the liquid-state. Our approach accounts for many-particle correlations of crowding particles of the liquid, and for diffusive transport across the spatially…
We explore the emergence of nonequilibrium collective motion in disordered non-thermal active matter when persistent motion and crowding effects compete, using simulations of a two-dimensional model of size polydisperse self-propelled…
We investigate the effect of cooperative interactions in an ensemble of microorganisms, modelled as self-propelled disk-like and rod-like particles, in a three-dimensional turbulent flow to show flocking as an emergent phenomenon. Building…
Biomolecular condensates provide distinct chemical environments, which control various cellular processes. The diffusive dynamics and chemical kinetics inside phase-separated condensates can be studied experimentally by fluorescently…
We theoretically study mixtures of chemically-interacting particles, which produce or consume a chemical to which they are attracted or repelled, in the most general case of many coexisting species. We find a new class of active phase…
Coupling between chemical fuel consumption and phase separation can lead to condensation at a nonequilibrium steady state, resulting in phase behaviors that are not described by equilibrium thermodynamics. Theoretical models of such…
While the impact of crowding on the diffusive transport of molecules within a cell is widely studied in biology, it has thus far been neglected in traffic systems where bulk behavior is the main concern. Here, we study the effects of…
Proliferation and motility are ubiquitous drivers of activity in biological systems. Here, we study a dense binary mixture of motile and proliferating particles with exclusively repulsive interactions, where homeostasis in the proliferating…
Living cells are characterized by the micrometric confinement of various macromolecules at high concentrations. Using droplets containing binary polymer blends as artificial cells, we previously showed that cell-sized confinement causes…
Biomolecular condensates are liquid- or gel-like droplets of proteins and nucleic acids formed at least in part through liquid-liquid phase separation. Condensates enable diverse functions of cells and the pathogens that infect them,…
Membraneless droplets or liquid condensates formed via liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) play a pivotal role in cell biology and hold potential for biomedical engineering. While membraneless droplets are often studied in the context of…
Particle beams are important tools for probing atomic and molecular interactions. Here we demonstrate that particle beams also offer a unique opportunity to investigate interactions in macroscopic systems, such as granular media. Motivated…
Biomolecular condensates form by phase separation of biological polymers and have important functions in the cell $-$ functions that are inherently connected to their physical properties. A remarkable aspect of such condensates is that…
Periodically sheared colloids at low densities demonstrate a dynamical phase transition from an inactive to active phase as the strain amplitude is increased. The inactive phase consists of no collisions/contacts between particles in the…
We review the effects of macromolecular crowding on the folding of RNA by considering the simplest scenario when excluded volume interactions between crowding particles and RNA dominate. Using human telomerase enzyme as an example, we…