Browse our latest Physics of Living Systems articles

Carboxysomes, the carbon-fixation machinery of cyanobacteria, are equidistantly-positioned by dynamic gradients of the protein McdA on the nucleoid that emerge through interaction with a previously unidentified carboxysome factor, McdB.

The structures responsible for photosynthesis in bacteria use the nucleoid and two unique proteins as a scaffold to position themselves.

A quantitative analysis of glucose-dependent transport regulation indicates that mitochondrial accumulation in regions of high nutrient availability can enhance metabolism in neuronal axons under physiologically relevant conditions.

A combination of experimental and theoretical analysis identifies body size-dependent energy storage as the physiological cause of 3/4-power law scaling of the metabolic rate in planarians.

Single-molecule experiments reveal that plectonemic supercoils occupy specific positions on DNA and a physical model relates this to the intrinsic curvature, providing an insight into how supercoiling organizes the genome.

A novel strategy is presented for quantitatively measuring protein-DNA and protein-protein interactions that regulate transcription in living cells.

Genetically altering the size of the molecular spring element in the giant protein titin established that titin determines the stiffness of skeletal muscle and the number of sarcomeres in series.

Biological shapes and morphological transitions can emerge from combining directed interactions between cells with apical-basal and planar cell polarity.

Arterial myocyte PKD2 channels are activated by vasoconstrictor stimuli, which increases blood pressure, are upregulated during hypertension and cell-specific knockout in vivo reduces both physiological blood pressure and hypertension.

Distinct molecular functions contribute to the same material property at larger scales leading to degenerate functionality.