Understanding how #cells avoid obstacles while #navigating complex environments.
#motility #cytoskeleton #Snx33 #sensing #membranes
https://phys.org/news/2023-09-cells-obstacles-complex-environments.html
The project in synthetic biology of developing cells from scratch with the most minimal systems possible continues, now with the ability to make movement happen.
Max Planck Institute scientists have taken artificial liposome vesicles made in previous experiments and combined them with Min proteins from E. coli, surprisingly creating a mechanical force gradient and moving the vesicles.
#Motility #SyntheticBiology #Biology #Biotechmistry #Proteins #Science #Scicomm
https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.114002
"Only when the viscous forces are sufficiently strong to plastically deform the material to a finite distance away from the swimmer will net #locomotion occur. Once locomotion is underway in the third stage, the yield stress retards swimming at small pitch angles."
aka "Surfing one's own wave"
In this preprint, Pierre and I show that a #cell which is not polarised at all but is only #treadmilling in a symmetric way can spontaneously start to migrate if it is spread on an sufficiently soft substrate.
This is something like #surfing, as the cell is carried away by an #elastic #wave... which it has itself created with its treadmilling!
While we know quite a lot on how evolution developed through the history of life, some parts continue to be a source of study.
How early cells changed into swimming motile forms is one of those areas.
Osaka City University scientists have taken Spiroplasma motility genes and inserted them into the synthetic minimal genome bacteria syn3, causing it to change from a sphere to a spiral helical swimming shape.
#Micro #filaments are usually about 7 nm in #diameter and #made up of #two #strands of #actin. Microfilament #functions #include #cytokinesis, #amoeboid #movement, #cell #motility, #changes #in #cell #shape, #endocytosis and #exocytosis, #cell #contractility, and #mechanical #stability. #Microfilaments are #flexible and #relatively #strong, #resisting #buckling by #multi #piconewton #compressive #forces and filament #fracture by #nanonewton #tensile #forces.
Activation of Toll-like receptor 7/8 encoded by the X chromosome alters #sperm #motility and provides a novel simple technology for sexing #sperm | #gender #selection https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000398
