Design Principles and Biomedical Applications of Multifunctional Biological Membranes

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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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Membranes is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.