Motion by stopping: Rectifying Brownian motion of nonspherical particles
Susan Sporer, Christian Goll, and Klaus Mecke
We show that Brownian motion is spatially not symmetric for mesoscopic particles embedded in a fluid if the particle is not in thermal equilibrium and its shape is not spherical. In view of applications to molecular motors in biological cells, we sustain nonequilibrium by stopping a nonspherical par ... [Phys. Rev. E 78, 011917 (2008)] published Thu Jul 24, 2008.
Growth of lipid vesicle structures: From surface fractals to mass fractals
Sandalo Roldan-Vargas, Ramon Barnadas-Rodriguez, Alberto Martin-Molina, Manuel Quesada-Perez, Joan Estelrich et al.
We study fractal vesicle aggregates whose morphology is conditioned by the interaction between the lipid vesicle membranes and calcium and magnesium ions. These morphologies are probed by means of static light scattering using a cross-correlation scheme that avoids the multiple intracluster scatteri ... [Phys. Rev. E 78, 010902 (2008)] published Wed Jul 23, 2008.
Effective potential of longitudinal interactions between microtubule protofilaments
M. Neek-Amal, N. Hamedani Radja, and M. R. Ejtehadi
An effective potential for longitudinal interactions between adjacent protofilaments in a microtubule is introduced. Our proposed interaction potential is a periodic and continuous function of the offset between two protofilaments, which also incorporates the bending energy of protofilaments. This p ... [Phys. Rev. E 78, 011912 (2008)] published Mon Jul 21, 2008.
Information capacity of genetic regulatory elements
Gasper TkaCik, Curtis G. Callan, Jr., and William Bialek
Changes in a cell's external or internal conditions are usually reflected in the concentrations of the relevant transcription factors. These proteins in turn modulate the expression levels of the genes under their control and sometimes need to perform nontrivial computations that integrate several i ... [Phys. Rev. E 78, 011910 (2008)] published Mon Jul 21, 2008.
Critical Dynamics of Vesicle Stretching Transition in Elongational Flow
Vasiliy Kantsler, Enrico Segre, and Victor Steinberg
We present results on the stretching of single tubular vesicles in an elongation flow toward dumbbell shapes, and on their relaxation. A critical strain rate epsilon-dot exists; for strain rates epsilon-dot
Test of the Gouy-Chapman Theory for a Charged Lipid Membrane against Explicit-Solvent Molecular Dynamics Simulations
Myunggi Yi, Hugh Nymeyer, and Huan-Xiang Zhou
A wealth of experimental data has verified the applicability of the Gouy-Chapman (GC) theory to charged lipid membranes. Surprisingly, a validation of GC by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations has been elusive. Here, we report a test of GC against extensive MD simulations of an anionic lipid bilayer ... [Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 038103 (2008)] published Fri Jul 18, 2008.