Biological physics articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    F-actin architecture modulates transmission and generation of stresses in cells, yet its impact on myosin ATP hydrolysis remains unknown. The authors perform experiments measuring myosin ATP hydrolysis rates, showing that F-actin architecture can control myosin energy consumption.

    • Ryota Sakamoto
    •  & Michael P. Murrell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Normal mode analysis is a crucial step in structural biology, but is based on an expensive diagonalisation of the system’s Hessian. Here the authors present INCHING, a GPU-based approach to accelerate this task up to >250 times over current methods for macromolecular assemblies.

    • Jordy Homing Lam
    • , Aiichiro Nakano
    •  & Vsevolod Katritch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Schools, flocks and related forms of collective behavior and collective locomotion involve complicated fluid dynamical interactions. Here, using a “mock flock" of robotic flappers, authors report that the interaction between leaders and followers is similar to one-way springs, leading to lattice-like self-organization but also a new type of traveling-wave disturbance.

    • Joel W. Newbolt
    • , Nickolas Lewis
    •  & Leif Ristroph

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is hard to correlate force, torque and localization information. The authors report Combined Optical and Magnetic BIomolecule TWEEZers, COMBI-Tweez, that integrates optical trapping, time-resolved electromagnetic tweezers, and fluorescence microscopy: they demonstrate visualisation of higher order structural motifs in DNA.

    • Jack W. Shepherd
    • , Sebastien Guilbaud
    •  & Mark C. Leake

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Contractile rings are formed from cytoskeletal filaments, specific crosslinkers and motor proteins during cell division. Here, authors form micron-scale contractile DNA rings from DNA nanotubes and synthetic crosslinkers, with both simulations and experiments showing ring contraction without motor proteins, offering a potential first step towards synthetic cell division machinery.

    • Maja Illig
    • , Kevin Jahnke
    •  & Kerstin Göpfrich

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How fast can animals run? Here, the authors show that maximum running speed is limited by different musculoskeletal constraints across animal size: kinetic energy capacity in small animals, and work capacity in large animals.

    • David Labonte
    • , Peter J. Bishop
    •  & Christofer J. Clemente

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There is increasing interest in measuring the mechanical properties of living cells. Here, the authors develop a method to simultaneously measure the cell mass and two parameters related to its natural oscillation or resonance frequencies.

    • Sophie Herzog
    • , Gotthold Fläschner
    •  & Daniel J. Müller

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In this work, the authors report NMR lipids Databank to promote decentralised sharing of biomolecular molecular dynamics (MD) simulation data with an overlay design. Programmatic access enables analyses of rare phenomena and advances the training of machine learning models.

    • Anne M. Kiirikki
    • , Hanne S. Antila
    •  & O. H. Samuli Ollila

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The many-body dispersion (MBD) framework models long-range electronic correlation and optical response of molecular systems. Here, the authors present a second-quantized MBD method that opens an efficient path to treating collective quantum fluctuations in molecular complexes with large number of atoms.

    • Matteo Gori
    • , Philip Kurian
    •  & Alexandre Tkatchenko

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hydraulic fracturing remodels cell-cell adhesions in physiology and during development. Here, authors combine vesicle experiments and computational modeling to identify the physical principles behind biological fracking.

    • Céline Dinet
    • , Alejandro Torres-Sánchez
    •  & Margarita Staykova

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Osmotic pressure is thought to play a key role in many cellular and developmental processes, but remains challenging to measure it in cells and tissues. Here, the authors present a sensor based on double emulsion droplets that allows quantification of osmotic pressure in situ and in vivo.

    • Antoine Vian
    • , Marie Pochitaloff
    •  & Otger Campàs

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dissipative structures are governed by non-equilibrium thermodynamics. Here, the authors describe a size-dependent transition from active droplets to active spherical shells—a dissipative structure that arises from reaction diffusion gradients.

    • Alexander M. Bergmann
    • , Jonathan Bauermann
    •  & Job Boekhoven

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In 1952, Turing unlocked the reaction-diffusion basis of natural patterns, such as zebra stripes. The authors propose a reaction-diffusion model that recreates characteristics of the flagellar waveform for bull sperm and Chlamydomonas flagella.

    • James F. Cass
    •  & Hermes Bloomfield-Gadêlha

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In bacteria such as E. coli, Min proteins ensure proper localization of the septum at the mid-zone of the cell before cell division. Here, the authors study the effects of changes in relative expression of Min proteins on cell size, providing evidence that Min proteins contribute to the regulation of cell size and the timing of septum formation.

    • Harsh Vashistha
    • , Joanna Jammal-Touma
    •  & Hanna Salman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Collective motion arises from the coordination of individuals and entails the adjustment of their respective velocities. Yet, how individuals achieve this coordination is often not understood. For migrating cells and motorized agents, Riedl et al. show that the synchronization of the intrinsic oscillator through nearest neighbour coupling establishes the necessary feedback leading to a uniform speed within the collective.

    • Michael Riedl
    • , Isabelle Mayer
    •  & Björn Hof

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The soft-grainy microstructure of cooked egg yolk is the result of a series of out of equilibrium processes of its protein-lipid contents. Here, the authors develop a time-temperature phase diagram that shows the coupling of the nanoscale processes that result in the grainy-gel microstructure of cooked egg yolk.

    • Nimmi Das Anthuparambil
    • , Anita Girelli
    •  & Christian Gutt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mechanisms by which aquatic animals optimize their tailbeat frequency for swimming have not been fully explained. Here, the authors propose scaling laws for undulatory swimmers, relating beat frequency to length considering muscle biology and fluid interaction.

    • Jesús Sánchez-Rodríguez
    • , Christophe Raufaste
    •  & Médéric Argentina

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In many bacteria and plasmids, DNA segregation is controlled by the ParABS system, an essential component of which is the formation of a nucleoprotein complex. Here, making use of recent discoveries, the authors develop a sliding and bridging model to predict the fine structure of this complex.

    • Lara Connolley
    • , Lucas Schnabel
    •  & Seán M. Murray

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Marin-Llaurado and colleagues engineer curved epithelial monolayers of controlled geometry and develop a new technique to map their state of stress. They show that pronounced stress anisotropies influence cell alignment.

    • Ariadna Marín-Llauradó
    • , Sohan Kale
    •  & Xavier Trepat

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cohesin protein complex is a molecular machine that extrudes DNA loops. Here, authors show that bending of the molecule’s long coiled coils is driven by thermal fluctuations and engagement of ATPase domains uses ATP energy to generate strong force.

    • Georgii Pobegalov
    • , Lee-Ya Chu
    •  & Maxim I. Molodtsov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The collective intermolecular dynamics of protein and water molecules, which overlap in subterahertz frequencies, are relevant for protein function expressions. Here the authors develop highly sensitive dielectric measurements, revealing that protein hydration is nonthermally accelerated by sub-terahertz irradiation.

    • Jun-ichi Sugiyama
    • , Yuji Tokunaga
    •  & Masahiko Imashimizu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Protein sequencing is one of the key aims of the nanopore field. Working toward this goal, here the authors report the direct identification of single amino acids in MoS2 nanopores with sub-1 Dalton resolution, as well as the discrimination of the amino acid isomers and amino acid phosphorylation.

    • Fushi Wang
    • , Chunxiao Zhao
    •  & Jiandong Feng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The organization of proteins and sugars on the cell membrane is crucial for cell signaling and function. Here, authors develop molecular probes and simulations to characterize the spatial organization of macromoleucles on live cell membranes.

    • Daniel P. Arnold
    • , Yaxin Xu
    •  & Sho C. Takatori

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The existence of multicellular systems relies on coordinated cell motion in three dimensions. Here, cell migration in rotating spherical tissues is shown to exhibit a collective mode with a single-wavelength velocity wave, which arises from the effect of curvature on the flocking behavior of cells on a spherical surface.

    • Tom Brandstätter
    • , David B. Brückner
    •  & Chase P. Broedersz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Living things rely on extremely sensitive molecular circuits. Here, authors uncover a universal structural limit on kinetic scheme sensitivity, with implications for gene regulation & the functions of condensates.

    • Jeremy A. Owen
    •  & Jordan M. Horowitz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sharpshooters can catapult their droplet excreta with a speed faster than their own movement speed. Challita et al. find that superpropulsion is achieved by the temporal tuning between the droplet and the stylus.

    • Elio J. Challita
    • , Prateek Sehgal
    •  & M. Saad Bhamla

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In this work the authors report a quasi two-dimensional population of living cells that can spontaneously self-assemble into finite-sized domains, an analogue of the microphase separation known in inert matter.

    • A. Carrère
    • , J. d’Alessandro
    •  & J.-P. Rieu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mechanical properties of biological tissues are key to their integrity and function. Here, the authors engineer 3D microtissues from optogenetically modified fibroblasts and use light to quantify tissue elasticity and strain propagation using their own constituent cells as internal actuators.

    • Adrien Méry
    • , Artur Ruppel
    •  & Thomas Boudou

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Meindlhumer et al. report a combined theoretical/experimental study of how the propagation direction of Min protein patterns can be altered by a bulk flow of solution.

    • Sabrina Meindlhumer
    • , Fridtjof Brauns
    •  & Erwin Frey

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is unclear what constraints exist on cellular life in frigid environments. Here, the authors demonstrate that reactive oxygen species and gene-expression speed impose a barrier to replication at low temperatures in yeast, with lower levels enabling quicker replication, and develop a model to describe this phenomenon.

    • Diederik S. Laman Trip
    • , Théo Maire
    •  & Hyun Youk

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors introduce dual communities, characterized by strong connections at their boundaries, and show that they are formed as a trade-off between efficiency and resilience in supply networks.

    • Franz Kaiser
    • , Philipp C. Böttcher
    •  & Dirk Witthaut

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