Related papers: Liquid-liquid phase separation enables highly sele…
Self-assembly is traditionally described as the process through which an initially disordered system relaxes towards an equilibrium ordered phase only driven by local interactions between its building blocks. However, This definition is too…
Recent studies reveal even the smallest genomes such as viruses evolve through complex and stochastic processes, and the assumption of independent alleles is not valid in most applications. Advances in sequencing technologies produce…
Dense packing of hydrophobic residues in the cores of globular proteins determines their stability. Recently, we have shown that protein cores possess packing fraction $\phi \approx 0.56$, which is the same as dense, random packing of amino…
Gene-sharing networks provide a powerful framework to study the evolution of viruses and mobile genetic elements. These bipartite networks, which link genes to the genomes that contain them, exhibit characteristic degree distributions: a…
Phase-separated liquid condensates can spatially organize and thereby regulate chemical processes. However, the physicochemical mechanisms underlying such regulation remain elusive as the intramolecular interactions responsible for phase…
Cellular membranes exhibit a large variety of shapes, strongly coupled to their function. Many biological processes involve dynamic reshaping of membranes, usually mediated by proteins. This interaction works both ways: while proteins…
Biomolecular condensates have been shown to play a fundamental role in localizing biochemistry in a cell. RNA is a common constituent of condensates, and can determine their biophysical properties. Functions of biomolecular condensates are…
Lipid membranes, the barrier defining living cells and many of their sub-compartments, bind to a wide variety of nano- and micro-meter sized objects. In the presence of strong adhesive forces, membranes can strongly deform and wrap the…
Biological condensates are assemblies of proteins and nucleic acids that form membraneless compartments in cells and play essential roles in cellular functions. In many cases they exhibit the physical properties of liquid droplets that…
The formation of (bio)molecular condensates via liquid-liquid phase separation in cells has received increasing attention, as these coacervates play important functional and regulatory roles within biological systems. However, the majority…
Many single-stranded (ss) RNA viruses self assemble from capsid protein subunits and the nucleic acid to form an infectious virion. It is believed that the electrostatic interactions between the negatively charged RNA and the positively…
Nanoparticles, such as viruses, can enter cells via endocytosis. During endocytosis, the cell surface wraps around the nanoparticle to effectively eat it. Prior focus has been on how nanoparticle size and shape impacts endocytosis. However,…
Complex colloidal cluster morphologies are desirable for the fabrication of advanced materials, such as photonic crystals and meta-materials, and can be formed through evaporation-driven packing. By coupling lattice Boltzmann and discrete…
The ICTV develops, refines and maintains a universal virus taxonomy; Order is the highest taxon in the branching hierarchy of recognised viral taxa. Historically, ICTV (sub)committees have classified viruses on the basis of morphological…
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…
Liquid cellular compartments spatially segregate from the cytoplasm and can regulate aberrant protein aggregation, a process linked to several medical conditions, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Yet the mechanisms by which…
Crystallization of proteins, specifically proteins of medical relevance, is performed for various reasons such as to understand the protein structure and to design therapies. Obtaining kinetic constants in rate laws for nucleation and…
We use a coarse-grained molecular model to study the self-assembly process of complexes of cationic and neutral lipids with DNA molecules ("lipoplexes") - a promising nonviral carrier of DNA for gene therapy. We identify the resulting…
Viruses are known to tolerate wide ranges of pH and salt conditions and to withstand internal pressures as high as 100 atmospheres. In this paper we investigate the mechanical properties of viral capsids, calling explicit attention to the…
We report on a molecular simulation method which captures the self-assembly of cationic lipid-DNA (CL-DNA) gene delivery complexes. Computational efficiency required for large length- and time-scale simulations is achieved through a…