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Optical coherence tomography (OCT) has allowed in vivo recording of sound-induced vibrations of different regions within the organ of Corti complex (OCC), including the basilar membrane (BM), outer hair cell/Deiters cell (OHC/DC) region, and reticular lamina (RL). In the hook region of the gerbil cochlea, where measurements can be made with a predominantly transverse optical axis, the three regions have different and characteristic motion responses: The OHC/DC region has greater motions than the other two regions at frequencies below the best frequency (sub-BF); the RL region typically has the greatest BF peak and smallest sub-BF motion.

The formation of a body-axis is central to animal development and involves both polarity and morphology. While polarity is traditionally associated with biochemical patterning, the morphological aspect of axis formation remains elusive. In regenerating Hydra tissues, we find that morphological evolution in all tissue samples depends on inherited positional information from the donor’s axis, and a foot precursor emerges early in the process. From the onset of regeneration, the Ca2+ excitations that drive actomyosin forces for tissue reshaping follow a gradient aligned with the inferred head-foot polarity direction.

The alternating access model has been widely applied to help understand many secondary transporters, but there are emerging exceptions that question the universal validity of such a theory. EmrE is a Small Multidrug Resistant (SMR) Transporter that utilizes the proton gradient across the membrane to efflux drug molecules from the cell. Recent experimental evidence has suggested that EmrE does not meet the conditions required for the alternating access model but still achieves coupled transport. This, consequently, suggests the need for a universal exchange model to explain the coupled transport.

Caveolin-1 (Cav-1) is a membrane-associated scaffolding protein essential for lipid regulation, cellular signaling, and caveolae formation. Phosphorylation at tyrosine 14 (Y14) of Cav-1 plays a pivotal role in modulating its functional dynamics, but the structural consequences of this modification remain unexplored. This site belongs to the N-terminal tail, which is unresolved in the recent CryoEM structures of the Cav-1 8S complexes. In this work, we used AlphaFold 3 to generate a full-length model of the human Cav-1 8S complex and its phosphorylated form (pCav-1) and performed molecular dynamics simulations of both complexes embedded in the plasma membrane.

TREK-1 channel is a polymodulated K2P channel that responds to a wide range of physical and chemical stimuli, enabling it to contribute to the regulation of cellular excitability. This member of the TREK subfamily exhibits an outward rectification resulting from a voltage-dependent gating, which can be reversibly converted into an ohmic leak mode by both synthetic and natural modulators. The present study aimed to investigate the gating mechanism in response to docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), using transient transfections of either WT TREK-1 channel or its G171D variant at the TM2.6 position in HEK 293T cells.

(Biophysical Journal 125, 1996–2011; April 21, 2026)

The NBAR-domain containing protein endophilin, as a major player in many endocytic pathways, has offered considerable insight into BAR-domain driven membrane remodeling. However, understanding the interaction of the different subdomains of endophilin and their abilities to sense and generate negative Gaussian curvature are yet unanswered questions, with significant implications for the mechanisms and regulation of unconventional endocytic pathways. Using coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulation, we demonstrate the synergistic remodeling capabilities of the NBAR remodeling unit, as well as its ability to sort to and generate membrane regions with negative Gaussian curvature.

Dopamine is a clinically essential pharmaceutical agent extensively used in cardiology and emergency medicine. During the drug treatment, interactions between dopamine and lipid membranes are unavoidable. However, their molecular-level interaction remains insufficiently understood. In this research, Sum frequency generation (SFG) spectroscopy was utilized to investigate the molecular-level interaction of dopamine with the negatively charged phosphatidylglycerol (PG) lipid bilayer, in real time and in situ.

Activation of the chemotaxis kinase CheA, controlled by ligand binding or covalent modification of its associated chemoreceptor, modulates the chemotaxis behavior of bacteria such as Escherichia coli. The activation of CheA, which results in large changes to its autophosphorylation rate, is proposed to involve control of interdomain interactions between the catalytic P4 domain and the substrate P1 domain. While both productive and non-productive interdomain P1/P4 interactions have been identified and modeled, observation of how these interdomain interactions impact activity has not been determined in functional signaling complexes.

DNA packaging imposes fundamental physical constraints on genomes across the tree of life. However, most of our mechanistic understanding of these processes comes from the eukaryotic nucleosome, where highly basic histones, along with their flexible tails, coordinate DNA compaction and gene accessibility. Large DNA viruses challenge this paradigm by assembling nucleosome-like particles with a divergent histone architecture. These viral assemblies lack full canonical histone tails, contain covalently fused domains linked by structured connectors, and exhibit altered surface electrostatics, features that collectively impose distinct biophysical properties on viral chromatin.