Related papers: Liquid-liquid phase separation enables highly sele…
Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, store their micron long DNA inside an icosahedral capsid with a typical diameter of 40 nm to 100 nm. Consistent with experimental observations, such confinement conditions induce an arrangement…
Just like atoms combine into molecules, colloids can self-organize into predetermined structures according to a set of design principles. Controlling valence -- the number of inter-particle bonds -- is a prerequisite for the assembly of…
We study the self-assembly behaviour of patchy particles with `protein-like' interactions that can be considered as a minimal model for the assembly of viral capsids and other shell-like protein complexes. We thoroughly explore the…
Intracellular transport of DNA carriers is a fundamental step of gene delivery. We present here a theoretical approach to study generically a single virus or DNA particle trafficking in a cell cytoplasm. Cellular trafficking has been…
The secretion of vesicles for intracellular transport often rely on the aggregation of specialized membrane-bound proteins into a coat able to curve cell membranes. The nucleation and growth of a protein coat is a kinetic process that…
Colloidal molecules are designed to mimic their molecular analogues through their anisotropic shape and interactions. However, current experimental realizations are missing the structural flexibility present in real molecules thereby…
The question of how stiff polymers are able to pack into small containers is particularly relevant to the study of DNA packaging in viruses. A reduced version of the problem based on coarse-grained representations of the main components of…
Prokaryotes do not make use of a nucleus membrane to segregate their genetic material from the cytoplasm, so that their nucleoid is potentially free to explore the whole volume of the cell. Nonetheless, high resolution images of bacteria…
Biomolecular condensates form on timescales of seconds in cells upon environmental or compositional changes. Condensate formation is thus argued to act as a mechanism for sensing such changes and quickly initiating downstream processes,…
We simulate the assembly dynamics of icosahedral capsids from subunits that interconvert between different conformations (or quasi-equivalent states). The simulations identify mechanisms by which subunits form empty capsids with only one…
Phase separation of various materials has been studied for one and a half centuries. In the last two decades, phase separation of proteins and nucleic acids has received enormous attention, due its relevance to cellular functions. However,…
Single-stranded RNA viruses co-assemble their capsid with the genome and variations in capsid structures can have significant functional relevance. In particular, viruses need to respond to a dehydrating environment to prevent genomic…
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…
We propose a description for the quasi-equilibrium self-assembly of small, single-stranded (ss) RNA viruses whose capsid proteins (CPs) have flexible, positively charged, disordered tails that associate with the negatively charged RNA…
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…
Viruses are biological nanosystems with a capsid of protein-made capsomer units that encloses and protects the genetic material responsible for their replication. Here we show how the geometrical constraints of the capsomer-capsomer…
Results from molecular dynamics simulations of simple, structured particles capable of self-assembling into polyhedral shells are described. The analysis focuses on the growth histories of individual shells in the presence of an explicit…
The proper design of DNA sequences allows for the formation of well defined supramolecular units with controlled interactions via a consecution of self-assembling processes. Here, we benefit from the controlled DNA self-assembly to…
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…
HIV-1 virions assemble as immature particles containing Gag polyproteins that are processed by the viral protease into individual components, resulting in the formation of mature infectious particles. There are two competing models for the…