Sticky Particles - Wiggly Lab

To achieve motion beyond diffusion, numerous soft particles (cells, viruses, DNA-coated colloids) rely on random attachement and detachment of sticky ligands on an opposing surface. Understanding the overall motion of these particles is critical to probe the biological and physical processes at stake (assembly, targeted arrest). However, attachment dynamics often occur on much shorter time scales and length scales then the overall motion, making suh predictions challenging.

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We rationalized the microscopic details of the interactions between DNA-coated surfaces [1]. Building on this knowledge it is possible to quantify equilibrium motion of a particle with multivalent ligands attaching to sticky receptors on a surface [2]. We could even rationalize why and when a sticky particle preferentially moves by ``hopping'' or ``sliding'' [3]. Surprisingly, we predicted that this motion could be affected by inertia, under certain (reachable) experimental conditions [4]. This opens up ways to control and improve assembly. Investigating these systems we were also driven to develop a robust coarse-graining approach to speed up simulations with such sticky motion [5].
[1] Comprehensive view of microscopic interactions between DNA-coated colloids F. Cui, S. Marbach, J. A. Zheng, M. Holmes-Cerfon, D. J. Pine Nature Comm. 13 (1), 1-10

[2] The Nanocaterpillar's Random Walk: Diffusion With Ligand-Receptor Contacts S. Marbach, J. A. Zheng, M. Holmes-Cerfon Soft Matter 18 (16), 3130-3146

[3] Hopping and crawling DNA-coated colloids J. A. Zheng, M. Holmes-Cerfon, D. J. Pine, S. Marbach arXiv preprint 2310.18785

[4] Mass Changes the Diffusion Coefficient of Particles with Ligand-Receptor Contacts in the Overdamped Limit S. Marbach, J. A. Zheng, M. Holmes-Cerfon Phys. Rev. Lett. 129 (4), 048003

[5] Coarse-grained dynamics of transiently bound fast linkers S. Marbach, C. E. Miles J. Chem. Phys 2023 12, e78100

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