Physiology articles within Nature Materials

Featured

• News & Views | 23 August 2018

  Luminal coating of the intestine

  An orally administered bifunctional gastrointestinal coating has been developed and shown to limit nutrient absorption through the bowel mucosa ultimately lowering blood glucose and also acting as a platform for delivery of drugs to the gastrointestinal tract.

  • Gregor Fuhrmann

• News & Views | 25 May 2017

  Unification through disarray

  High-resolution imaging, composition analysis and mechanical testing reveal a disordered transitional material within the Achilles tendon-to-bone attachment, structured as a fibrous network to enable force transfer and maximize structural integrity.

  • Guy M. Genin
  •  & Stavros Thomopoulos

• News & Views | 24 February 2016

  Conscripted by collagen

  In atherosclerotic plaques, patterns of calcification — which have profound implications for plaque stability and vulnerability to rupture — are determined by the collagen's content and patterning throughout the plaque.

  • Jordan D. Miller

• Article | 16 November 2015

  A magnetic protein biocompass

  A polymeric protein complex consisting of a newly identified magnetoreceptor protein and known magnetoreception-related photoreceptor cryptochromes exhibits spontaneous alignment in magnetic fields.

  • Siying Qin
  • , Hang Yin
  •  & Can Xie

• Research Highlights | 22 April 2014

  Bone's bridged layers

  • Pep Pàmies

• Research Highlights | 23 January 2014

  Glassy cytoplasm

  • Pep Pàmies

• News & Views | 21 November 2013

  Water brings order

  Measurements of the structure and organization of intact bone samples show that water plays a significant role in orienting bone apatite crystals, and that such ordering is mediated by an amorphous mineral coating layer.

  • Melinda Duer
  •  & Arthur Veis

• News & Views | 22 May 2013

  Orbicular origins

  The application of imaging techniques prevalent in materials science to the biological process of soft tissue calcification lends new insight into age-related cardiovascular disease.

  • Jordan D. Miller

• Article | 01 July 2012

  The predominant role of collagen in the nucleation, growth, structure and orientation of bone apatite

  Calcium-rich non-collagenous proteins in the extracellular matrix of bone are believed to be involved in the different steps of bone mineralization. It is now shown that in the absence of these proteins collagen can initiate and orient growing apatite crystals in vitro, and influence both their structural characteristics on the atomic scale and their larger-scale three-dimensional distribution in bone.

  • Yan Wang
  • , Thierry Azaïs
  •  & Nadine Nassif