Soft Condensed Matter Physics in Molecular and Cell Biology provides a thorough grounding in the fundamental physics of soft matter and then explores its application with regard to the three important classes of biomacromolecules: proteins, DNA, and lipids, as well as to aspects of the biology of cells.

Features:

• Offers readers the most advanced thinking in the field from leading experts
• Explores and gives support to the idea that judicious coarse graining can provide biologically relevant insights
• Extensively reviews the soft matter physics background before applying it to biological systems
• Offers references to encourage further study
• Considers experimental techniques, covering single molecule force spectroscopy of proteins, the use of optical tweezers, and solution scattering

Contents

Coarse graining in biological soft matter

• The atomistic description of globular proteins: the tertiary structure
• Coarse-graining : level 1 Secondary structure;
• Coarse-graining : level 2 Domains
• Coarse-graining : level 3 Proteins as colloids
• Further coarse-graining

Soft Matter Background

• Introduction to colloidal systems
• Colloidal phase behaviour; Colloid dynamics
• The physics of floppy polymers
• Statistical physics of single chains
• Statistical physics of many chains
• Polymer dynamics
• Self-assembly and properties of lipid membranes
• The constituents of lipid bilayer membranes
• Self assembly
• Bilayer membrane phases
• Membrane energies
• Fluctuations
• Domains, shapes and other current issues
• Some aspects of membrane elasticity
• Gibbs' description
• Description in terms of microscopic properties
• Equations of equilibrium and shape of interfaces
• Introduction to electrostatics in soft and biological matter
• The Poisson-Boltzmann theory
• Poisson-Boltzmann equation: planar geometry;
• Poisson-Boltzmann equation: cylindrical coordinates;
• Poisson-Boltzmann equation: spherical coordinates -- Charged colloids
• Beyond the Poisson-Boltzmann treatment
• Thermal Barrier Hopping in Biological Physics
• A preliminary: Diffusion on a flat landscape
• First passage times: an exact result
• Landscapes and intermediate states
• Higher-dimensional barrier crossing

Biological Applications

• Elasticity and dynamics of cytoskeletal filaments and their networks
• Single-filament properties
• Solutions of semi-flexible polymer
• Network elasticity
• Nonlinear response
• Twisting and stretching DNA: Single-molecule studies
• Micromanipulation techniques
• Stretching DNA
• DNA under torsion
• DNA-protein interactions
• Interactions and conformational fluctuations in DNA arrays
• Electrostatic interactions
• Equation of state: No thermal fluctuations; Effect of thermal fluctuations (1) Effect of thermal fluctuations (2)
• Sequence-structure relationships in proteins
• Energy functions for fold recognition
• The evolutionary capacity of proteins
• Physical and functional aspects of protein dynamics
• Hydration effects and the dynamical transition
• Neutron scattering from proteins
• Protonation reactions in proteins
• Coupling between conformational and protonation state changes in membrane proteins
• Analysis of conformational changes in proteins
• Models of cell motility

Experimental Techniques

• Single-molecule force spectroscopy of proteins
• Pattern recognition in force-extension traces
• A practical guide to optical tweezers
• Basic principles
• Heating in optical tweezers
• Resonant trapping
• Photobleaching in optical tweezers
• Displacement detection and detection bandwidth
• Signal-to-noise ratio and resolution
• Solution Scattering
• Static scattering
• Dynamic scattering

Index

click here to see books • videos • cd-roms of related interest