Repulsive Particle Interactions Enable Selective Information Processing at Cellular Interfaces

2025/06/17 by Jenna Elliott, Hemang J. Shah, Hiral Shah +9 · 1 voice
Physics and Astronomy · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Force Microscopy Techniques and Applications #Lipid Membrane Structure and Behavior #Nuclear Structure and Function

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/ywr6-mzz5

Abstract

Living systems relay information across membrane interfaces to coordinate compartment functions. We identify a physical mechanism for selective information transmission that arises from the sigmoidal response of surface-bound particle densities to spatial features in adjacent external structures through a nonuniform binding energy. This mechanism implements a form of spatial thresholding, enabling the binary classification of external cues. Expansion microscopy measurements of nuclear pore complex distributions in S. arctica show signatures of such physical thresholding.

Citations

• ArXiv

Discussions

• 🧵 🧪 1/ Hi! I’m excited to share our latest work, now on arXiv: Repulsive particle interactions at cellular interfaces enable selective information processing (arxiv.org/abs/2506.14739) Where we expl [bsky, 41 points, 1 comments]

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