Related papers: Condensate-mediated shape transformations of cellu…
The importance of molecular-scale forces in sculpting biological form and function has been acknowledged for more than a century. Accounting for forces in biology is a problem that lies at the intersection of soft condensed matter physics,…
Large-scale cellular transformations are triggered by subtle physical and structural changes in individual biomacromolecular and membrane components. A prototypical example of such an event is the orchestrated fusion of membranes within an…
I show the assumed Bilayer structure of cell membranes is Topologically falsified by known aminophospholipid dynamics in metabolically-active, Far from Equilibrium cells. The sensitivity of lipid and cytoplasmic flows to temperature,…
Thermal fluctuations strongly modify the large length-scale elastic behavior of crosslinked membranes, giving rise to scale-dependent elastic moduli. While thermal effects in flat membranes are well understood, many natural and artificial…
Biomolecular condensates help organize the cell cytoplasm and nucleoplasm into spatial compartments with different chemical compositions. A key feature of such compositional patterning is the local enrichment of enzymatically active…
In many biological systems, the curvature of the surfaces cells live on influence their collective properties. Curvature should likewise influence the behavior of active colloidal particles. We show using molecular simulation of…
Encapsulation of chemicals using polymer membranes enables to control their transport and delivery for applications such as agrochemistry or detergency. To rationalize the design of polymer capsules, it is necessary to understand how the…
Living cells employ excitable reaction-diffusion waves for internal cellular functions, in which curvature-inducing proteins are often involved. However, the role of their mechanochemical coupling is not well understood. Here, we report the…
Membrane shape fluctuations induce attractive interactions between rigid inclusions. Previous analytical studies showed that the fluctuation-induced pair interactions are rather small compared to thermal energies, but also that multi-body…
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…
Understanding the mechanical instabilities of two-dimensional membranes has strong connection to the subjects of structure instabilities, morphology control and materials failures. In this work, we investigate the plastic mechanism…
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…
Membrane viscosity is known to play a central role in the transient dynamics of isolated viscoelastic capsules by decreasing their deformation, inducing shape oscillations and reducing the loading time, that is, the time required to reach…
Membrane wrapping underlies nanoparticle uptake during endocytosis, whereas the reverse process of membrane unwrapping accompanies particle expulsion and membrane fusion events. Existing theoretical descriptions typically focus on adhesion…
Wetting of the membrane to displace air or conditioning liquids is important to exploit the complex porosity of a filtration membrane. This study reveals the details of wetting in multibore membrane-based filtration modules. Using magnetic…
The morphologies of two-dimensional (2D) crystals, nucleated, grown, and integrated within 2D elastic fluids, for instance in giant vesicle membranes, are dictated by an interplay of mechanics, permeability, and thermal contraction.…
Transitions between solid-like and fluid-like states in living tissues have been found in steps of embryonic development and in stages of disease progression. Our current understanding of these transitions has been guided by experimental…
In biological tissues, it is now well-understood that mechanical cues are a powerful mechanism for pattern regulation. While much work has focused on interactions between cells and external substrates, recent experiments suggest that cell…
Transport of microscopic objects across biological membranes usually involves membrane deformation to enclose the object followed by detachment of the engulfed particle. However, in artificial membranes, this last topological remodelling…
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…