Membrane inclusions such as membrane-embedded peptides or proteins exhibit a curvature-dependent interaction with the surrounding lipid matrix due to the mismatch between their intrinsic curvature and the local membrane curvature. This interaction causes an inhomogeneous lateral distribution of the inclusions and a corresponding adjustment of the vesicle shape. We have studied theoretically the...

Membrane/ protein trafficking in the secretory/ biosynthetic and endocytic pathways is mediated by vesicles. Vesicle trafficking in eukaryotes is regulated by a class of small monomeric GTPases the Rab protein family. Rab proteins represent the largest branch of the Ras superfamily GTPases, and have been concerned in a variety of intracellular vesicle trafficking and different intracellular sig...

The shape dynamics of fluid vesicles is governed by the coupling of the flow within the two-dimensional membrane to the hydrodynamics of the surrounding bulk fluid. We present a numerical scheme which is capable of solving this flow problem for arbitrarily shaped vesicles using the Oseen tensor formalism. For the particular problem of simple shear flow, stationary shapes are found for a large r...

すべての生物において細胞外小胞の存在が確認されている。その細胞外小胞の形成機構とともにその役割や生理的機能が近年ますます注目されてきている。細菌の細胞外小胞の形成には細胞死が関わり、それにより細胞外小胞の多様性が生まれることが明らかになった。

Fusion of a vesicle with its target membrane is preceded by tethering or docking. However, the physical mechanism of vesicle-tethering is unknown. To study this mechanism, we used eosinophil secretory granules, which undergo stimulated homotypic fusion events inside the cell during degranulation. Using a dual optical trap system, we observed tether formation between isolated eosinophil secretor...

The molecular mechanism responsible for capturing, sorting and retrieving vesicle membrane proteins following triggered exocytosis is not understood. Here we image the post-fusion release and then capture of a vesicle membrane protein, the vesicular acetylcholine transporter, from single vesicles in living neuroendocrine cells. We combine these measurements with super-resolution interferometric...

We report the synthesis and study of two series of amphiphilic block copolymers (BCPs) of which the hydrophilic block is either poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) or poly(N,N-dimethylacrylamide) (PDMA) and the hydrophobic block is a side-chain liquid crystalline polymer (SCLCP) bearing biphenyl mesogens in majority and azobenzene mesogens in minority, namely, a random copolymer of 6-[4-(4-cyanophenyl) ph...

BACKGROUND Among the most prominent molecular constituents of a recycling synaptic vesicle is the clathrin triskelion, composed of clathrin light chain (Clc) and clathrin heavy chain (Chc). Remarkably, it remains unknown whether clathrin is strictly necessary for the stimulus-dependent re-formation of a synaptic vesicle and, conversely, whether clathrin-independent vesicle endocytosis exists at...