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 3372

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, China
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
Wenzhou Institute University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wenzhou, China
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

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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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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 310 KiB  
Article
Thermodynamic Considerations on the Biophysical Interaction between Low-Energy Electromagnetic Fields and Biosystems
by Umberto Lucia and Giulia Grisolia
Membranes 2024, 14(8), 179; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes14080179 - 22 Aug 2024
Viewed by 1232
Abstract
A general theory explaining how electromagnetic waves affect cells and biological systems has not been completely accepted yet; nevertheless, extremely low-frequency electromagnetic fields (ELF-EMFs) can interfere with and modify several molecular cellular processes. The therapeutic effect of EMFs has been investigated in several [...] Read more.
A general theory explaining how electromagnetic waves affect cells and biological systems has not been completely accepted yet; nevertheless, extremely low-frequency electromagnetic fields (ELF-EMFs) can interfere with and modify several molecular cellular processes. The therapeutic effect of EMFs has been investigated in several clinical conditions with promising results: in this context a better understanding of mechanisms by which ELF-EMF influences cellular events is necessary and it could lead to more extended and specific clinical applications in different pathological conditions. This paper develops a thermodynamic model to explain how ELF-EMF directly interferes with the cellular membrane, inducing a biological response related to a cellular energy conversion and modification of flows across cell membranes. Indeed, energy, irreversibly consumed by cellular metabolism, is converted into entropy variation. The proposed thermodynamic model views living systems as adaptative open systems, analysing the changes in energy and matter moving in and out of the cell. Full article
22 pages, 21609 KiB  
Article
Characterizing Cellular Physiological States with Three-Dimensional Shape Descriptors for Cell Membranes
by Guoye Guan, Yixuan Chen, Hongli Wang, Qi Ouyang and Chao Tang
Membranes 2024, 14(6), 137; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes14060137 - 7 Jun 2024
Viewed by 1400
Abstract
The shape of a cell as defined by its membrane can be closely associated with its physiological state. For example, the irregular shapes of cancerous cells and elongated shapes of neuron cells often reflect specific functions, such as cell motility and cell communication. [...] Read more.
The shape of a cell as defined by its membrane can be closely associated with its physiological state. For example, the irregular shapes of cancerous cells and elongated shapes of neuron cells often reflect specific functions, such as cell motility and cell communication. However, it remains unclear whether and which cell shape descriptors can characterize different cellular physiological states. In this study, 12 geometric shape descriptors for a three-dimensional (3D) object were collected from the previous literature and tested with a public dataset of ~400,000 independent 3D cell regions segmented based on fluorescent labeling of the cell membranes in Caenorhabditis elegans embryos. It is revealed that those shape descriptors can faithfully characterize cellular physiological states, including (1) cell division (cytokinesis), along with an abrupt increase in the elongation ratio; (2) a negative correlation of cell migration speed with cell sphericity; (3) cell lineage specification with symmetrically patterned cell shape changes; and (4) cell fate specification with differential gene expression and differential cell shapes. The descriptors established may be used to identify and predict the diverse physiological states in numerous cells, which could be used for not only studying developmental morphogenesis but also diagnosing human disease (e.g., the rapid detection of abnormal cells). Full article
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