Biophysics articles within Nature Physics

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  • Article |

    Interactions between cells can affect the way they migrate, impacting processes like cancer invasion and wound healing. Experiments on cell colonies of moderate density show that these interactions can enhance motility by increasing persistence.

    • Joseph d’Alessandro
    • , Alexandre P. Solon
    •  & Charlotte Rivière

  • Article |

    Cells rely on their proteins being positioned correctly for processes such as cell division and migration. A model based on Turing patterns provides an active mechanism for establishing this precise control in bacteria.

    • Seán M. Murray
    •  & Victor Sourjik

  • Article |

    The proteins that adhere cells together in tissue assemble in domains near the cell–cell interface. Experiments, simulations and theory show that formation of these domains is regulated by the membrane itself — with an explicit role for fluctuations.

    • Susanne F. Fenz
    • , Timo Bihr
    •  & Ana-Sunčana Smith

  • Editorial |

    The centennial celebrations for morphology masterwork On Growth and Form are just kicking off. We look at why physicists should get involved.

  • News & Views |

    A curious peak in the distribution describing stochastic switching in bacterial motility had researchers confounded. But a careful study performed under varying mechanical conditions has now revealed that the breaking of detailed balance is to blame.

    • Yuhai Tu

  • News & Views |

    Early forms of life could have started by molecular compounds coming together under conditions dense enough to promote reactions. But how might these droplets have undergone what we now know as cell division? The answer may be simpler than we think.

    • Ramin Golestanian

  • Letter |

    Spindle-shaped cells readily form nematic structures marked by topological defects. When confined, the defect distribution is independent of the domain size, activity and type of cell, lending a stability not found in non-cellular active nematics.

    • Guillaume Duclos
    • , Christoph Erlenkämper
    •  & Pascal Silberzan

  • Article |

    Cell motility is typically described as a random walk due to the presence of noise. But a dynamical model suggests that dendritic cells move deterministically, alternating between fast and slow motility, and exhibiting periodic polarity reversals.

    • Ido Lavi
    • , Matthieu Piel
    •  & Nir S. Gov

  • Article |

    Certain proteins are capable of self-replicating, including those associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Simulations now pinpoint the adsorption of monomeric proteins onto protein fibril surfaces as the mechanism responsible for self-replication.

    • Anđela Šarić
    • , Alexander K. Buell
    •  & Daan Frenkel

  • Letter |

    The elastic energy built up during peptide self-assembly is exploited in the realization of a microactuator. The energy stored is released on millisecond timescales via a buckling instability controlled with droplet microfluidics.

    • Aviad Levin
    • , Thomas C. T. Michaels
    •  & Tuomas P. J. Knowles

  • News & Views |

    Jammed states in growing yeast populations share intriguing similarities with amorphous solids, despite being generated through self-replication. The impact this behaviour has on cell division highlights one way that physical forces regulate biological function.

    • Shreyas Gokhale
    •  & Jeff Gore

  • Letter |

    Populations of growing yeast are shown to undergo a jamming transition typically observed in gravity-driven granular flows. The pressures generated by intercellular forces are found to be large enough to destroy the cells’ micro-environment.

    • Morgan Delarue
    • , Jörn Hartung
    •  & Oskar Hallatschek

  • News & Views |

    Living systems are constantly being driven out of equilibrium by consuming energy. Studying fluctuations can tell us how they do so while maintaining order — and what this teaches us about non-equilibrium processes in general.

    • Ana-Sunčana Smith

  • Article |

    Segregation between binding and non-binding proteins in the space between cells is critical for immune response. In vitro experiments show that size alone suffices to explain the exclusion of non-binding proteins from membrane interfaces.

    • Eva M. Schmid
    • , Matthew H. Bakalar
    •  & Daniel A. Fletcher

  • News & Views |

    The folded surface of the human brain, although striking, continues to evade understanding. Experiments with swelling gels now fuel the notion that brain folding is modulated by physical forces, and not by genetic, biological or chemical events alone.

    • Ellen Kuhl

  • Letter |

    A 3D-printed fetal brain undergoes constrained expansion to reproduce the shape of the human cerebral cortex. The soft gels of the model swell in solvent, mimicking cortical growth and revealing the mechanical origin of the brain’s folded geometry.

    • Tuomas Tallinen
    • , Jun Young Chung
    •  & L. Mahadevan

  • Letter |

    Hydrodynamic coupling induces a vortex state in bacterial populations. Microfluidic experiments and modelling now demonstrate that lattices of these vortices can self-organize into patterns characterized by ferro- and antiferromagnetic order.

    • Hugo Wioland
    • , Francis G. Woodhouse
    •  & Raymond E. Goldstein

  • News & Views |

    Single-molecule techniques have long given us insight into the motion and interactions of individual molecules. But simulations now show that the dynamics inside single proteins is not as simple as we thought — and that proteins are forever changing.

    • Ralf Metzler

  • Progress Article |

    The internal structure of cells is organized into compartments, many of which lack a confining membrane and instead resemble viscous liquid droplets. Evidence is mounting that these compartments form via spontaneous phase transitions.

    • Clifford P. Brangwynne
    • , Peter Tompa
    •  & Rohit V. Pappu

  • Article |

    Cells moving in a tissue undergo a rigidity transition resembling that of active particles jamming at a critical density—but the tissue density stays constant. A new type of rigidity transition implicates the physical properties of the cells.

    • Dapeng Bi
    • , J. H. Lopez
    •  & M. Lisa Manning

  • Article |

    Cells rely on coherent oscillatory processes, despite being subject to large fluctuations from their environment. Simple motifs found in all oscillatory systems are studied to determine the thermodynamic cost of maintaining this coherence.

    • Yuansheng Cao
    • , Hongli Wang
    •  & Yuhai Tu

  • News & Views |

    The myriad creatures that inhabit the waters of our planet all swim using different mechanisms. Now, a simple relation links key physical observables of underwater locomotion, on scales ranging from millimetres to tens of metres.

    • Johannes Baumgart
    •  & Benjamin M. Friedrich

  • Letter |

    Nonlinear inertial flows usually influence the motion of swimming organisms, but most studies focus on the tractable case of swimmers too small to feel such effects. A mechanistic principle now unifies the varied dynamics of macroscopic swimmers.

    • Mattia Gazzola
    • , Médéric Argentina
    •  & L. Mahadevan

  • News & Views |

    A cable-like ring of biopolymers helps to pull cells together across the site of a wound. Widely thought to be homogeneous, the traction forces involved are actually remarkably heterogeneous — revealing an unexpected pattern of force generation during wound repair.

    • Miranda V. Hunter
    •  & Rodrigo Fernandez-Gonzalez

  • Article |

    Wound repair is thought to involve cell migration and the contraction of a tissue-level biopolymer ring—invoking analogy with the pulling of purse strings. Traction-force measurements now show that this ring engages the tissue's surroundings to steer migration, prompting revision of the purse-string mechanism.

    • Agustí Brugués
    • , Ester Anon
    •  & Xavier Trepat

  • Letter |

    Bacteria often reside in fluids. Now, it is shown that hydrodynamic shear, which creates forces and torques on bacterial suspensions, stimulates the attachment of bacteria to surfaces and seriously hinders chemotaxis.

    • Roberto Rusconi
    • , Jeffrey S. Guasto
    •  & Roman Stocker

  • Article |

    Biomembranes can transmit forces over cellular length scales. Now, however, their active role in generating stress is demonstrated. The adhesion and spreading of a liposome that has no active cytoskeletal machinery are shown to contract the substrate, exerting traction stresses that are comparable with those of living cells.

    • Michael P. Murrell
    • , Raphaël Voituriez
    •  & Margaret L. Gardel

  • Article |

    A study of an actomyosin active gel now demonstrates the importance of the crosslinking density of actin polymers in enabling myosin motors to internally drive contraction and rupture the network into clusters. These results could help us to better understand the role of the cytoskeleton in cell division and tissue morphogenesis.

    • José Alvarado
    • , Michael Sheinman
    •  & Gijsje H. Koenderink

  • News & Views |

    High-resolution imaging of neuronal networks reveals that spontaneous bursts of collective activity are a consequence of an implosive concentration of noise.

    • John M. Beggs

  • Article |

    Neuronal networks can spontaneously exhibit periodic bursts of collective activity. High-resolution calcium imaging and computer modelling of in vitro cultures now reveal that this behaviour is a consequence of noise focusing—an implosive concentration of spontaneous activity due to the interplay between network topology and intrinsic neuronal dynamics.

    • Javier G. Orlandi
    • , Jordi Soriano
    •  & Jaume Casademunt

  • News & Views |

    In their search for more favourable environments bacteria choose new directions to explore, usually at random. In a marine bacterium with a single polar flagellum it is now shown that this quest is enhanced by a buckling instability.

    • Howard C. Berg

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