Research report 2010 - Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart site
The sweet coat of living cells – from supramolecular organization and dynamics to biological function
Authors
Richter, Ralf
Departments
Selbständige Forschungsgruppe – Modellsysteme glykanhaltiger Zellhüllen
Max-Planck-Institut für Intelligente Systeme, Stuttgart (vormals Max-Planck-Institut für Metallforschung)
Max-Planck-Institut für Intelligente Systeme, Stuttgart (vormals Max-Planck-Institut für Metallforschung)
Summary
Many biological cells endow themselves with a sugar-rich coat that plays a key role in the protection of the cell and in structuring and communicating with its environment. An outstanding property of these pericellular coats is their dynamic self-organization into strongly hydrated and gel-like meshworks. Tailor-made model systems that are constructed from the molecular building blocks of pericellular coats can help to understand how the coats function.