Biophysical Journal

Estimation of 3D wall shear stress in new blood vessel sprouts using high-fidelity simulations Angiogenesis, characterized by endothelial cell sprouting of new blood vessels off existing vessels, is a common denominator for normal physiological function and multiple diseases. Although it is…

New study investigates shear stresses in capillary sprouts by combining 3D RBC-resolved simulations with in vivo blood vessel sprout reconstructions, showing how deformable red blood cells drive large time-dependent wall shear stress variations along sprouts.

Molecular dynamics reveals how calcium drives hetero- versus homodimerization of type I collagen Type I collagen is the main structural protein of vertebrates and forms molecular trimers from the COL1A1 and COL1A2 gene products, proα1(I) and proα2(I), during biosynthesis. Calcium ions are…

#OPENACCESS: Molecular dynamics reveals how calcium drives hetero- versus homodimerization of type I collagen. Emily J. Johnson, Shangze Xu, João V. de Souza, Anthony Evans, Agnieszka K. Bronowska, and Elizabeth G. Canty-Laird.

Special issue call for papers: Single-Molecule Approaches to Reveal Structural and Mechanistic Properties of the Genome.

Special issue call for papers: Foundations of Membrane Biophysics: Dedicated to Wolfgang Helfrich.

Transmembrane domains of fusion proteins promote stalk formation by inducing membrane disorder Membrane fusion is a fundamental process involved in exocytosis, fertilization, or cell entry by enveloped viruses. Membrane fusion is facilitated by fusion proteins, which are anchored in membranes…

#OPENACCESS: Transmembrane domains of fusion proteins promote stalk formation by inducing membrane disorder. Katharina C. Scherer, Chetan S. Poojari, and Jochen S. Hub.

DNA-PAINT resolves E-cadherin-independent cross-junctional F-actin organization in Drosophila embryonic tissue Cell junction remodeling is central to epithelial morphogenesis and tissue rheology and depends on the interplay between adhesion molecules and the actomyosin cortex. E-cadherin constitutes the…

#OPENACCESS: DNA-PAINT resolves E-cadherin-independent cross-junctional F-actin organization in Drosophila embryonic tissue. Matthias Häring and Yuanshu Zhang et al.

Nanoscale Insights: Unveiling the Architecture of Adherens Junctions in Tissue The cover image from our recent study in the March 3 issue of Biophysical Journal captures a glimpse into the nanoscale world of cell-cell adhesion. Using DNA/peptide-PAINT super-resolution microscopy...

Read about the cover art for the newly released issue of Biophysical Journal on the BPS Blog: www.biophysics.org/blog/nanosca...

Special issue call for papers: Viral Biophysics.

Peptide properties predict multistate translocation kinetics via protective antigen nanopores Single-molecule analysis of guest-host peptide translocations via anthrax toxin protective antigen (PA) nanopores reveals a multistate kinetic mechanism. K-means clustering identified four distinct…

#OPENACCESS: Peptide properties predict multistate translocation kinetics via protective antigen nanopores. Jennifer M. Colby and Bryan A. Krantz.

Bending moduli of mixtures: Diffusional softening and interactions The apparent bending moduli (KC) of bilayers composed of binary mixtures of lipids with different spontaneous curvatures have been obtained using x-ray diffuse scattering (XDS). The mixtures that…

Imagine clathrin-mediated endocytosis as a balloon party—actin is the party crew pulling and twisting to shape the balloon into little gift bags! Yuan et al. show how actin dynamics drive vesicle formation like expert origami artists folding membrane “balloons” into cargo packets.

Special issue call for papers: Foundations of Membrane Biophysics: Dedicated to Wolfgang Helfrich.

The cyanobacterial ESCRT-III protein IM30 forms biomolecular condensates at physiologically relevant conditions IM30, the inner membrane-associated protein of 30 kDa, conserved in cyanobacteria and chloroplasts, is a member of the ESCRT-III superfamily of membrane remodeling proteins. Like other ESCRT-III…

#OPENACCESS: The cyanobacterial ESCRT-III protein IM30 forms biomolecular condensates at physiologically relevant conditions. Ndjali Quarta, Tika Ram Bhandari, Katrin Debrich, Nadja Hellmann, Martin Girard, and Dirk Schneider.

Special issue call for papers: Viral Biophysics.

Modeling lipid nanoparticle transport in extracellular matrix: Effects of particle size and rigidity Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) traverse through multiple biological barriers, such as cross-linked mesh structures in the extracellular matrix, before reaching their target sites. The physicochemical…

Think of lipid nanoparticles as tiny marbles rolling through a jelly maze! Nakate et al. show that size & stiffness are like marble weight and squishiness—big & rigid marbles get stuck or slow down in the extracellular matrix, while small & soft ones cruise through easier.

Thermal fluctuations expose hidden mechanical couplings in proteins Protein function emerges from the dynamic interplay between structural organization, environmental factors, and thermal fluctuations. This complex choreography governs essential biological processes…

A framework that provides environment-dependent force constants to quantitively map protein’s dance in presence of other dance partners—how solvent, ligands, and cofactors modulate a protein’s conformational landscape.

An approach based on linear programming to build experimentally driven pump-leak models Pump-Leak (P-L) models are powerful tools in membrane and cellular physiology, providing a quantitative framework to understand how cells regulate intracellular ion concentrations, cell volume, and…

#OPENACCESS: New study presents a linear programming–based approach to parameterize Pump-Leak models across cell types, here applied to U87-MG glioblastoma cells and able to infer otherwise inaccessible parameters and predict ion and volume dynamics.

Single-molecule force measurements show that r-proteins assist 23S rRNA co-transcriptional folding Mechanical overstretching of individual RNA-DNA hybrids is used as a novel in vitro assay to prepare a co-transcriptional RNA structure and study its interaction with proteins. Dual optical traps…

#OPENACCESS: Single-molecule force measurements show that r-proteins assist 23S rRNA co-transcriptional folding. Lena Melkonyan, Thierry Bizebard, Ryo Aoyama, Takuya Ueda, and Ulrich Bockelmann.

Multiscale mechanobiochemical modeling of cell-substrate adhesion dynamics Cell adhesion is a fundamental biological process that governs cell proliferation, differentiation, migration, and tissue development. Cells adhere to the extracellular matrix through specialized…

Imagine your cells putting on running shoes! Rodriguez et al. shows that when epithelial cells express vimentin intermediate filaments, they put on their cytoskeletal “laces” and sprint through 3D matrices—boosting cell migration & cell-matrix grip like rock climbers scaling terrain.

Heterogeneous NF-κB activation and enhancer features shape transcription in Drosophila immunity Conserved NF-κB signaling pathways shape immune responses in animals. In mammals, NF-κB activation patterns and downstream transcription vary with stimulus, cell type, and stochastic differences…

#OPENACCESS: Heterogeneous NF-κB activation and enhancer features shape transcription in Drosophila immunity. Noshin Nawar, Emma Rits, Lianne B. Cohen, and Zeba Wunderlich

Vimentin reshapes epithelial collectives in 3D How cells coordinate their shape and movement within three-dimensional tissues remains one of the central questions in mechanobiology, with broad relevance to development, wound healing, immunity,…

In the New and Notable "Vimentin reshapes epithelial collectives in 3D,"
Fatemeh Ramezani Khozestani, Mohammad Jafari, and Farid Alisafaei highlight the paper "Expression of vimentin intermediate filaments in epithelial cells promotes cell migration and cell matrix..."

The role of actin dynamics in vesicle formation during clathrin-mediated endocytosis Clathrin-mediated endocytosis (CME) is an important internalization route for macromolecules, lipids, and membrane receptors in eukaryotic cells. During CME, the plasma membrane invaginates and…

It takes more than two to tango – the authors observed that the actin filament branching and membrane tension perturbs the nano-scale architectural dance of vesicle formation by the plasma membrane.

Special issue call for papers: Viral Biophysics.

Lipid composition effects on the number and size of liposomes formed by the inverted emulsion method Liposomes have been widely employed as membrane scaffolds in the construction of minimal cell models. In 2003, the inverted emulsion method was introduced as a novel technique for generating giant…

Melkonyan et al. perform single-molecule force measurements with a dual-beam optical trap to mimic co-transcriptional RNA folding, revealing that early-binding r-proteins bind and stabilize 23S rRNA as it emerges.

LRP1 as a Regulator of Extracellular Fibrinogen: A Structural and Mechanistic View The image on the cover of the February 17 issue of Biophysical Journal was created by using BioRender and incorporates structural models generated in this study. These models were derived directly fro...

Read about the cover art for the newly released issue of Biophysical Journal on the BPS Blog: www.biophysics.org/blog/lrp1-as...

Molecular dynamics simulations reveal DNA gate opening mechanisms for M. smegmatis topoisomerase 1A Type 1A topoisomerases relax torsional strain in DNA via a strand passage mechanism in which a protein-mediated DNA gate must open during the enzyme’s catalytic cycle. This gate-open conformational…

#OPENACCESS: Molecular dynamics simulations reveal DNA gate opening mechanisms for M. smegmatis topoisomerase 1A. Deepesh Sigdel and Maria Mills. buff.ly/GZXDTzi

Simulation of reaction-diffusion equations with reaction-reaction analog circuits In 1952, Alan Turing showed that analog reaction-diffusion equations were extremely powerful models of biological development and of distributed cellular automata. Analog circuits have been shown to…

#OPENACCESS: Simulation of reaction-diffusion equations with reaction-reaction analog circuits. Nathan Green, Douglas Beahm, Anthony Cressman, Jacob Denbeaux, Shouka Tavakolian, and Rahul Sarpeshkar. buff.ly/6Nc9p8O

Special issue call for papers: Viral Biophysics.

Flow transports extracellular lipid-anchored proteins across the surface of living COS-7 cells Rapid diffusion of membrane lipids and membrane proteins in living cell plasma membranes demonstrates that the membrane is fluid. However, motion of membrane molecules is inhibited on one side by the…

#OPENACCESS: Imagine tiny “surfboards” (lipid-anchored proteins) riding a gentle stream on the surface of a cell! Sreeja Sasidharan et al. 2026 show flow sweeps these anchored proteins downstream across COS-7 membranes, revealing a new way cells could organize and sense forces.

Design of de novo nucleolar surface proteins Biomolecular condensates are membraneless intracellular structures formed from the phase separation of proteins and nucleic acids. Although biomolecular condensates do not have a phospholipid…

What happens to a cellular membrane-less condensate when you wrap its surface with an engineered protein? Read this article to find out.

Bending moduli of mixtures: Diffusional softening and interactions The apparent bending moduli (KC) of bilayers composed of binary mixtures of lipids with different spontaneous curvatures have been obtained using x-ray diffuse scattering (XDS). The mixtures that…

Think of a lipid bilayer like a two-ingredient waffle! In Lucy Knox et al. 2025, mixing lipids with different curvatures softens the bend like adding syrup between layers—and their new X-ray “taste test” reveals how interactions change the bendiness of the recipe!