Related papers: Probing and modeling cell-cell communication in 2D…
To maintain homeostasis, living cells process information with networks of interacting molecules. Traditional models for cellular information processing have focused on networks of chemical reactions between molecules. Here, we describe how…
Multivalent interactions between deformable mesoscopic units are ubiquitous in biology, where membrane macromolecules mediate the interactions between neighbouring living cells and between cells and solid substrates. Lately, analogous…
A minimalist simulation model for lipid bilayers is presented. Each lipid is represented by a flexible chain of beads in implicit solvent. The hydrophobic effect is mimicked through an intermolecular pair potential localized at the…
We develop a theoretical framework for understanding dynamic morphologies and stability of droplet interface bilayers (DIBs), accounting for lipid kinetics in the monolayers and bilayer, and droplet evaporation due to imbalance between…
Biological cells utilize membranes and liquid-like droplets, known as biomolecular condensates, to structure their interior. The interaction of droplets and membranes, despite being involved in several key biological processes, is so far…
Ion transport in biological tissues is crucial in the study of many biological and pathological problems. Some multi-cellular structures, like smooth muscles on the vessel walls, could be treated as periodic bi-domain structures, which…
We introduce a simulation strategy to consistently couple continuum biomembrane dynamics to the motion of discrete biological macromolecules residing within or on the membrane. The methodology is used to study the diffusion of integral…
We consider the hydrodynamics of lipid bilayers containing transmembrane proteins of arbitrary shape. This biologically-motivated problem is relevant to the cell membrane, whose fluctuating dynamics play a key role in phenomena ranging from…
The biomolecules in and around a living cell -- proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, carbohydrates -- continuously sample myriad conformational states that are thermally accessible at physiological temperatures. Simultaneously, a given…
The aim of this paper is to develop suitable models for the phenomenon of cell blebbing, which allow for computational predictions of mechanical effects including the crucial interaction of the cell membrane and the actin cortex. For this…
Throughout our history, we, humans, have sought to better control and understand our environment. To this end, we have extended our natural senses with a host of sensors-tools that enable us to detect both the very large, such as the…
Biological signaling is imagined as a combination of activation and transport. The former is triggered by local molecular interactions and the latter is the result of molecular diffusion. However, other fundamental physical principles of…
Membrane pores are implicated in several critical functions, including cell fusion and the transport of signaling molecules for intercellular communication. However, these structural features are often difficult to probe directly. Droplet…
In living cells, intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs), such as FUS and DDX4, undergo phase separation, forming biomolecular condensates. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we investigate their behavior in their respective homogenous…
Membrane targeting domains play crucial roles in the association of signalling molecules to the plasma membrane. For most peripheral proteins, the protein-to-membrane interaction is transient. After proteins dissociate from the membrane…
From multicellular tissues to bacterial colonies, three dimensional cellular structures arise through the interaction of cellular activities and mechanical forces. Simple bacterial communities provide model systems for analyzing such…
Hyaluronic acid is an abundant polyelectrolyte in the human body that forms extracellular hydrogels in connective tissues. It is essential for regulating tissue biomechanics and cell-cell communication, yet hyaluronan overexpression is…
A major issue in biology is the understanding of the interactions between proteins. These interactions can be described by a network, where the proteins are modeled by nodes and the interactions by edges. The origin of these protein…
This chapter summarizes several approaches combining theory, simulation and experiment that aim for a better understanding of phenomena in lipid bilayers and membrane protein systems, covering topics such as lipid rafts, membrane mediated…
Viscosity is a key property of cell membranes that controls mobility of embedded proteins and membrane remodeling. Measuring it is challenging because existing approaches involve complex experimental designs and/or models, and the…