Biological soft Materials

摘要

With one or two exceptions,biological materials are "soft",meaning that they combine viscous and elastic elements.This mechanical behavior results from self-assembled supramolecular structures that are stabilized by noncovalent interactions.It is an ongoing and profound challenge to understand the self-organization of biological materials.In many cases,concepts can be imported from soft-matter physics and chemistry,which have traditionally focused on materials such as colloids,polymers,surfactants,and liquid crystals.Using these ideas,it is possible to gain a new perspective on phenomena as diverse as DNA condensation,protein and peptide fibrillization,lipid partitioning in rafts,vesicle fusion and budding,and others,as discussed in this selective review of recent highlights from the literature.