The cytoplasm of bacterial cells is a highly crowded cellular compartment that possesses
considerable osmotic potential. As a result, and owing to the semipermeable nature of the …

All cellular membranes have the functionality of generating and maintaining the gradients of
electrical and electrochemical potentials. Such potentials were generally thought to be an …

Mechanosensitive channels sense mechanical forces in cell membranes and underlie many
biological sensing processes,–. However, how exactly they sense mechanical force remains …

The simplest cell-like structure, the lipid bilayer vesicle, can respond to mechanical
deformation by elastic membrane dilation/thinning and curvature changes. When a protein is …

ALL cellular organisms respond to vibration, touch, gravity or changes in osmolarity,
although the molecules on which such mechanosensations depend are unknown …

The capsaicin receptor, TRPV1, is regulated by phosphatidylinositol-4, 5-bisphosphate (PIP
2), although the precise nature of this effect (ie, positive or negative) remains controversial …

Interconversion between conductive and non-conductive forms of the K+ channel selectivity
filter underlies a variety of gating events, from flicker transitions (at the microsecond …

Bacteria have many voltage-and ligand-gated ion channels, and population-level
measurements indicate that membrane potential is important for bacterial survival. However …

Of Aristotle's five senses, we know that sight, smell and much of taste are initiated by ligands
binding to G-protein-coupled receptors; however, the mechanical sensations of touch and …

In mechanosensitive (MS) channels, gating is initiated by changes in intra-bilayer pressure
profiles originating from bilayer deformation. Here we evaluated two physical mechanisms …