Related papers: Probing and modeling cell-cell communication in 2D…
We study lipid translocation ("flip-flop") between the leaflets of a planar lipid bilayer with transition path sampling (TPS). Rare flip-flops compete with biological machineries that actively establish asymmetric lipid compositions.…
In cell membranes, proteins and lipids diffuse in a highly crowded and heterogeneous landscape, where aggregates and dense domains of proteins or lipids obstruct the path of diffusing molecules. In general, hindered motion gives rise to…
Engineering simple, artificial models of living cells allows synthetic biologists to study cellular functions under well-controlled conditions. Reconstituting multicellular behaviors with synthetic cell-mimics is still a challenge because…
Understanding interactions between membranes requires measurements on well-controlled systems close to natural conditions, in which fluctuations play an important role. We have determined, by grazing incidence X-ray scattering, the…
In eukaryotic cells, mitochondria form networks that range from highly fused interconnected structures to fragmented populations of individual organelles that undergo transient interactions. These structures can be described as temporal…
For the past decade, droplet interface bilayers (DIBs) have had an increased prevalence in biomolecular and biophysical literature. However, much of the underlying physics of these platforms are poorly characterized. To further the…
The transport of particles in cells is influenced by the properties of intracellular networks they traverse while searching for localized target regions or reaction partners. Moreover, given the rapid turnover in many intracellular…
A mesoscopic coarse-grain model for computationally-efficient simulations of biomembranes is presented. It combines molecular dynamics simulations for the lipids, modeled as elastic chains of beads, with multiparticle collision dynamics for…
Molecular dynamics simulations have been performed on pure liquid water, aqueous solutions of sodium chloride, and polymer solutions exposed to a strong external electric field with the goal to gain molecular insight into the structural…
Cellular biology abound with filaments interacting through fluids, from intracellular microtubules, to rotating flagella and beating cilia. While previous work has demonstrated the complexity of capturing nonlocal hydrodynamic interactions…
Gaining access to the cell interior is fundamental for many applications, such as electrical recording, drug and biomolecular delivery. A very promising technique consists of culturing cells on nano/micro pillars. The tight adhesion and…
Lipid bilayers forming biological membranes are known to behave as viscous 2D fluids on submicrometer scales; usually they contain a large number of active protein inclusions. Recently, it has been shown [Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 112,…
Diffusion in cell membranes is not just simple two-dimensional Brownian motion, but typically depends on the timescale of the observation. The physical origins of this anomalous sub-diffusion are unresolved, and model systems capable of…
Various biological cells secrete diffusing chemical compounds into their environment for communication purposes. Secretion usually takes place over the cell membrane in a spatially heterogeneous manner. Mathematical models of these…
We describe simulations of Proteins and artificial pseudo-molecules interacting and shaping lipid bilayer membranes. We extract protein diffusion Parameters, membrane deformation profiles and the elastic properties of the used membrane…
Lipid bilayer membranes are the fundamental biological barriers that permit life. The bilayer dynamics largely participates in orchestrating cellular workings and is characterized by substantial stability together with extreme plasticity…
The prospects of application of graphene and related structures as the membrane mimetic materials, capable of reproducing several biomembrane functions up to the certain limit, are analyzed in the series of our papers. This paper considers…
In this paper, a new method to efficiently simulate diffusion controlled second order chemical reactions is derived and applied to site-specific DNA-binding proteins. The protein enters a spherical cell and propagates via two competing…
At the heart of the structured architecture and complex dynamics of biological systems are specific and timely interactions operated by biomolecules. In many instances, biomolecular agents are spatially confined to flexible lipid membranes…
Translocation of DNA through a nanopore with embedded electrodes is at the centre of new rapid inexpensive sequencing methods which allow distinguishing the four nucleobases by their different electronic structure. However, the subnanometer…