329 papers
Biophysics sits at the fascinating intersection where the laws of physics meet the complexity of living systems. This field uses tools like light, electricity, and mechanical forces to decode how cells move, how proteins fold, and how our senses translate the world around us. Rather than just observing biology, biophysicists measure and model life to understand the fundamental machinery that powers every organism.
On Gist.Science, we make these discoveries accessible by curating the latest preprints directly from bioRxiv. Our team processes every new submission in this category, providing both clear, plain-language overviews and detailed technical summaries so readers of all backgrounds can grasp the cutting-edge science. Below are the most recent biophysics papers from bioRxiv, ready for you to explore.
This study demonstrates through molecular dynamics simulations that the terminal Glc-(1-2)- residue of the lipid-linked oligosaccharide donor is essential for anchoring the substrate to eukaryotic oligosaccharyltransferase and maintaining its catalytically productive alignment, thereby directly enhancing the enzyme's N-glycosylation efficiency.
This study reveals that the intrinsically disordered C-terminal segment of Skp1 utilizes a glutamate-rich acidic patch as a charge-encoded rheostat to permit rapid helix nucleation while selectively suppressing propagation, thereby maintaining conformational flexibility and recognition competence for diverse binding partners.
The authors present CHARMM-GUI Covalent Ligand Docker (CGUI-CLD), a web-based platform that automates the complex preparation, modification, and docking of covalent ligands using AutoDock4, thereby significantly reducing the workload and advancing research in covalent drug discovery.
This study presents a multiscale cytoskeletal network model that integrates bio-chemo-mechanical properties and a boundary-modified finite element method to successfully simulate the network's shear rheological evolution across time scales, revealing how the synergy between cross-linker dynamics and filament mechanics governs power-law responses while offering insights into cancer-induced softening and drug-mediated stiffening mechanisms.
This paper proposes and mathematically validates that bacteria achieve robust control of flagellar number through an assembly-coupled feedback mechanism, where the growth of the flagellar C-ring triggers the release and inactivation of the master regulator FlrA by the ATPase FlhG, thereby balancing intrinsic fluctuations and cell-to-cell variability.
This paper proposes two complementary elastic network models demonstrating that mechanosensitive remodeling dynamics, characterized by preferential disassembly under low tension and energy-injected assembly, enable actin cortex networks to maintain rigid homeostasis and long-lived elastic memory despite continuous structural turnover.
This study combines molecular dynamics simulations of eight Synaptotagmin C2 domains to reveal that while loop net charge primarily governs PIP2 binding, both electrostatic charge and local phenylalanine enrichment are required to drive membrane penetration, with the relative contribution of phenylalanine residues interpreted from fitted regression coefficients rather than direct experimental comparison.
This study functionally characterizes a newly identified early-diverging KCNE subunit, kcne0, in the jawless lamprey, demonstrating its ability to constitutively activate lamprey KCNQ1 channels and revealing species-specific compatibility and structural determinants of channel modulation across vertebrates.
This study identifies MTCL1 as a licensing factor that couples microtubule stabilization with tubulin acetylation through molecular mimicry during assembly, a mechanism essential for proper neuronal function as evidenced by motor defects and increased seizure susceptibility in MTCL1-deficient zebrafish.
This paper introduces ACCEST, an accelerated NMR method that utilizes accordion spectroscopy to acquire complete Chemical Exchange Saturation Transfer (CEST) profiles from a single two-dimensional experiment, thereby offering substantial time savings and enabling the study of non-equilibrium systems compared to conventional multi-spectrum approaches.