Biological physics articles within Nature Physics

Featured

  • Letter
    | Open Access

    During development, tissues with complex topology emerge from collections of cells with simple geometry. This process in neuroepithelial organoids is governed by two topologically distinct modes of epithelial fusion.

    • Keisuke Ishihara
    • , Arghyadip Mukherjee
    •  & Frank Jülicher

  • News & Views |

    Watching a single protein molecule fold for days reveals rare excursions into configurations that were previously hidden from observation by high energy barriers.

    • Krishna Neupane
    •  & Michael T. Woodside

  • News & Views |

    Embryonic development is characterized by large cellular flows. The cells retain their positional information despite these flows thanks to an unjamming of cells that pull along jammed cells in a way that preserves initial tissue patterning.

    • Sham Tlili

  • Article |

    Cervix and breast carcinomas are highly heterogeneous in their mechanical properties across scales. This heterogeneity provides the tumour with stability and room for cell motility.

    • Thomas Fuhs
    • , Franziska Wetzel
    •  & Josef A. Käs

  • Article |

    Cilia are composed of cytoskeletal filaments and molecular motors and are characterized by a wave-like motion. Here the authors show that this motion is reconstituted in vitro from the self-assembly of polymerizing actin filaments and myosin motors.

    • Marie Pochitaloff
    • , Martin Miranda
    •  & Pascal Martin

  • News & Views |

    Cells can sense the mechanical properties of their environment. By adjusting the ruffling of their membranes, cells respond to different viscosities of their surrounding liquid medium.

    • Laura M. Faure
    •  & Pere Roca-Cusachs

  • News & Views |

    Biomolecular condensates grow in busy cellular environments. Statistical image analysis of heterogeneous structures now enables quantification of macromolecular interactions between condensates and cytoskeletal filaments.

    • Tina Wiegand
    •  & Arjun Narayanan

  • News & Views |

    Plasmodium sporozoites can move in rotating vortices owing to their chiral shape and mechanical flexibility, revealing important physical aspects of collective motion.

    • Iva M. Tolić
    •  & Isabelle Tardieux

  • News & Views |

    The transition from chemistry to evolvable molecular systems is at the core of origins of life studies. Now, the acidic dew–liquid water dynamic cycling inside simulated Hadean rock pores is found to possibly provide a confined environment for strand separation, replication, mutation, and the evolution of nucleic acids.

    • Sudha Rajamani
    •  & Elisa Biondi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Detailed microfluidics experiments and numerical simulations are used to analyse the role played by dew in the origin of life, and demonstrate that it can drive the first stages of Darwinian evolution for DNA and RNA.

    • Alan Ianeselli
    • , Miguel Atienza
    •  & Dieter Braun

  • Editorial |

    The merits of conventional particle accelerators range from fundamental science to applications like radiotherapy. Plasma-based accelerators are getting up to speed and may overtake conventional ones in the near future.

  • News & Views |

    Laser accelerators promised to deliver high-energy particle beams for biomedical uses, but have struggled to meet constraints on dose control and stability. An experiment now enables translational research with proton beams at ultrahigh dose rate.

    • Leonida A. Gizzi
    •  & Maria Grazia Andreassi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A laser–plasma accelerator provides proton beams for the precise irradiation of human tumours in a mouse model. This work advances translational research with ultrahigh proton dose rates at laser-driven sources.

    • Florian Kroll
    • , Florian-Emanuel Brack
    •  & Elke Beyreuther

  • Article |

    Information theory sets an upper limit on the ability of bacteria to navigate up chemical gradients. Experiments reveal that cells do so at speeds within a factor of two of the limit, suggesting they are selected to efficiently use information.

    • H. H. Mattingly
    • , K. Kamino
    •  & T. Emonet

  • Article |

    The cell cortex stiffens during cell division, facilitating the necessary shape changes. Microrheology measurements now reveal that the rest of the cell interior actually softens, in a process that probably involves two key biomolecules trading roles.

    • Sebastian Hurst
    • , Bart E. Vos
    •  & Timo Betz

  • News & Views |

    Single-molecule experiments can now quantify the surface forces that compete to package tethered DNA into a protein-rich condensate — providing much-needed mechanistic insight into the phase behaviour of the entangled genome in the nucleus.

    • Marina Feric

  • Letter
    | Open Access

    In vitro experiments and theory reveal that a protein associated with DNA transcription mediates condensation of a protein–DNA phase via a first-order transition. The forces uncovered in the study may contribute to chromatin remodelling in the cell.

    • Thomas Quail
    • , Stefan Golfier
    •  & Jan Brugués

  • News & Views |

    Cells moving on microprinted tracks reveal a preference for regions that they have already visited, suggesting an update to a century of dynamical models for cell trajectories.

    • Henrik Flyvbjerg

  • Letter |

    Microswimmers tend to accumulate in regions where their speed is significantly reduced, but experimental and numerical evidence now points towards a viscophobic turning mechanism that biases certain microalgae away from high-viscosity areas.

    • Michael R. Stehnach
    • , Nicolas Waisbord
    •  & Jeffrey S. Guasto

  • News & Views |

    A life-or-death choice determines the fate of reproductive cells. It has long been assumed that the choice is genetically regulated, but it now seems that the decision may instead be controlled by intracellular pressure.

    • Kacy L. Gordon

  • Article |

    Self-propelled particles are shown to orient themselves towards areas of high density, phase separating into fluid-like clusters. This behaviour is unique to active systems, forming a distinct class of motility-induced phase separation.

    • Jie Zhang
    • , Ricard Alert
    •  & Steve Granick

  • Article |

    A computational framework draws analogy with foams to offer a comprehensive picture of how cell behaviours influence fluidization in embryonic tissues, highlighting the role of tension fluctuations in regulating tissue rigidity.

    • Sangwoo Kim
    • , Marie Pochitaloff
    •  & Otger Campàs

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Protein oscillations linked to cell division in Escherichia coli are shown to localize unrelated molecules on the cell membrane via a diffusiophoretic mechanism, in which an effective friction fosters cargo transport along the fluxes set up by the proteins.

    • Beatrice Ramm
    • , Andriy Goychuk
    •  & Petra Schwille

  • Letter |

    Cells exploit protein pattern formation to perform key processes, and do so while undergoing major shape changes. Experiments and theory together reveal a shape-adaptation mechanism capable of controlling protein dynamics even as the cell deforms.

    • Manon C. Wigbers
    • , Tzer Han Tan
    •  & Nikta Fakhri

  • News & Views |

    Biophysicists have long sought to probe the physical properties of the cell nucleus, but the sheer size of this tiny organelle puts limits on its exploration. The coarsening of biomolecular droplets looks set to give us the inside scoop.

    • Alexandra Zidovska

  • Article |

    Certain bacteria cells respond to the stress of long-term exposure to antibiotics by changing their shape. Single-cell experiments and modelling cast this as a mechanical feedback strategy that makes bacteria more adaptive to surviving antibiotics.

    • Shiladitya Banerjee
    • , Klevin Lo
    •  & Aaron R. Dinner

  • Letter |

    Topological defects in active nematic systems such as epithelial tissues and neural progenitor cells can be associated with biological functions. Here, the authors show that defects can play a role in the layer formation of the soil bacterium Myxococcus xanthus.

    • Katherine Copenhagen
    • , Ricard Alert
    •  & Joshua W. Shaevitz

  • Letter |

    Bacteria are able to move as vast, dense collectives. Here the authors show that slow movement is key to this collective behaviour because faster bacteria cause topological defects to collide together and trap cells in place.

    • O. J. Meacock
    • , A. Doostmohammadi
    •  & W. M. Durham

  • Article |

    Active matter particles self-propel but controlling their direction of motion can be challenging. Here the authors place motile bacteria inside microdroplets and control their propulsion by exploiting the asymmetric director structure of the surrounding liquid crystal.

    • Mojtaba Rajabi
    • , Hend Baza
    •  & Oleg D. Lavrentovich

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