{"id":240006,"date":"2026-06-30T10:08:49","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T15:08:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/lipids-and-dna-nanostructures-independently-control-artificial-cell-mechanics"},"modified":"2026-06-30T10:08:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T15:08:49","slug":"lipids-and-dna-nanostructures-independently-control-artificial-cell-mechanics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/lipids-and-dna-nanostructures-independently-control-artificial-cell-mechanics","title":{"rendered":"Lipids and DNA nanostructures independently control artificial cell mechanics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/lipids-and-dna-nanostructures-independently-control-artificial-cell-mechanics.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What if the mechanical properties of a cell could be programmed like the components of a machine? Researchers at the University of Tokyo have discovered that two fundamental modes of cellular deformation\u2014stretching and bending\u2014can be independently controlled using different molecular building blocks. The finding provides a new strategy for engineering artificial cells, drug-delivery capsules and adaptive soft materials with precisely tailored mechanical functions.<\/p>\n<p>Miho Yanagisawa, an associate professor at the University of Tokyo, and Kazutoshi Masuda, a Ph.D. student, developed a new framework for dissecting the mechanics of artificial cells. Using lipid-coated microdroplets as simplified cell models, they combined micropipette aspiration experiments with a theoretical model that separates membrane mechanics into stretching and bending contributions. The approach successfully captured nonlinear deformation behaviors that conventional models could not explain. The work is <a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1002\/smsc.70321\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in the journal Small Science.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers found that lipid molecular geometry primarily determines membrane stretching elasticity. In contrast, when Y-shaped DNA motifs were interconnected to form a three-dimensional network, they created a nanoscale scaffold that dramatically enhanced resistance to bending while leaving stretching elasticity largely unchanged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What if the mechanical properties of a cell could be programmed like the components of a machine? Researchers at the University of Tokyo have discovered that two fundamental modes of cellular deformation\u2014stretching and bending\u2014can be independently controlled using different molecular building blocks. The finding provides a new strategy for engineering artificial cells, drug-delivery capsules and [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1902,11,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bioengineering","category-biotech-medical","category-nanotechnology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240006\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}