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The outer membrane (OM) of Gram-negative bacteria functions as a protective barrier. It is unusual because the OM bilayer is asymmetric; the inner leaflet is composed of phospholipids, but the outer leaflet is made of lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Two kinds of proteins are found in the OM. Lipoproteins are inserted into the inner leaflet of the … Read more

Stable isotope labeling by amino acids combined with mass spectrometry is a widely used methodology to quantitatively examine metabolic and signaling pathways in yeast, fruit flies, plants, cell cultures and mice. We have recently shown that C. elegans can be completely labeled with heavy-labeled lysine by feeding worms on prelabeled lysine auxotroph Escherichia coli for … Read more

Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved membrane trafficking from the cytoplasm to lysosomes, which was discovered nearly half a century ago. In autophagy, the unique double membrane-bound autophagosomes transiently emerge in the cytoplasm, sequester portion of the cytosol and organelles, and eventually fuse with lysosomes to degrade the contents. In addition to the basic role in … Read more

Over the last decade, the Computational BioPhysics group at the University of Twente has developed a number of techniques to study the properties of lipid membranes by computer simulations, using both coarse-grained and atomically detailed models. This has enabled us to calculate their bending rigidity, elasticity, edge energy, free energy of pore formation, shear viscosity … Read more