Design Principles and Biomedical Applications of Multifunctional Biological Membranes
A special issue of Membranes (ISSN 2077-0375). This special issue belongs to the section "Biological Membranes".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2024 | Viewed by 3355
Special Issue Editors
Interests: fluid membranes; elasticity and geometry of membranes and vesicles; physics of 2D and 3D liquid crystals; elastic folding of DNA biomacromolecules and proteins; nonlinear science; theoretical biophysics and bioinformatics
Interests: elasticity and geometry of solid/fluid membranes; multicomponent fluid membranes; coarse-grained simulations of membranes and polymers; cell migration and microswimming with/without geometric confinements; fluid-structure interaction; active colloid motors; self-assembly of molecular materials
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Biological membranes are essential for life through their compartmentalization into cells and organelles therein. The bilayer structure, composed of various kinds of lipids, membrane proteins and bioactive polymers anchored thereon, can perform many significant biological functions, including biochemical signaling, ion transportation, membrane trafficking and protein scaffolding, morphological change, membrane fission/fusion, and cell motility. Each function requires that a specific group of proteins and lipids with anchored sugar chains rapidly assemble and disassemble at a specific site on membrane surface. Such processes, at the nanoscale, further drive the deformation of membranes or vesicles at the micron level in order to perform physiological and pathological functions. Understanding the design principles underneath these rich phenomena is critical to controlling various functions of biological membranes and applying their multiple functions to a broad range of artificial membranes and liposomes, stimuli reponsive functional materials, medical soft materials, and even physiological and pathological processes, such as intracellular signaling pathway, endocytosis/exocytosis, and immunomodulatory processes.
This Special Issue focuses on the recent developments regarding theory, simulation and experiments focused on biological membranes interacting with complex environments, such as external fields, BAR protein regulation, phase separation and viscous fluid, and the novel applications emerging from such studies. At present, their applications are constrained by many open questions regarding the diversity of components, heterogeneity of membrane structures, non-equilibrium thermodynamics, nonlinear elasticity and their interaction with complex environments, which are under intense investigation.
Prof. Dr. Zhongcan Ouyang
Prof. Dr. Hao Wu
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- cell membranes
- solid membranes
- fluid membranes
- multicomponent membranes
- bioactive membranes
- external fields
- external flows
- endocytosis/exocytosis
- membrane fusion/fission
- membrane budding
- pattern formation
- phase separation
- lipid rafts
- lipid-lipid interactions
- lipid-protein interactions
- protein-protein interactions
- drug-membrane interactions
- nanoparticle-membrane interactions
- transmembrane ion channels
- signal transduction
- membrane structure and organization
- mathematical modeling
- numerical simulations
- intracellular communication
- extracellular vesicles
- ion regulation
- geometric confinements
- extracellular matrix
- protein scaffolding
- membrane trafficking
- cytoskeleton network
- cortical layers
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