The surface wrinkling of biological tissues is ubiquitous in nature. Accumulating evidence suggests that the mechanical force plays a significant role in shaping the biological morphologies. Controlled wrinkling has been demonstrated to be able to spontaneously form rich multiscale patterns, on either planar or curved surfaces. The surface wrinkling on planar substrates has been investigated thoroughly during the past decades. However, most wrinkling morphologies in nature are based on the curved biological surfaces and the research of controllable patterning on curved substrates still remains weak. The study of wrinkling on curved substrates is critical for understanding the biological growth, developing three-dimensional (3D) or four-dimensional (4D) fabrication techniques, and creating novel topographic patterns. In this review, fundamental wrinkling mechanics and recent advances in both fabrications and applications of the wrinkling patterns on curved substrates are summarized. The mechanics behind the wrinkles is compared between the planar and the curved cases. Beyond the film thickness, modulus ratio, and mismatch strain, the substrate curvature is one more significant parameter controlling the surface wrinkling. Curved substrates can be both solid and hollow with various 3D geometries across multiple length scales. Up to date, the wrinkling morphologies on solid/hollow core–shell spheres and cylinders have been simulated and selectively produced. Emerging applications of the curved topographic patterns have been found in smart wetting surfaces, cell culture interfaces, healthcare materials, and actuators, which may accelerate the development of artificial organs, stimuli-responsive devices, and micro/nano fabrications with higher dimensions.

The influence of temperature on plants is essential. However, our knowledge on the intricate regulation process underlying heat stress (HS) response in plants is limited. Recently, information about thermal sensors in vivo has begun to emerge. In this study, another primary environmental stimulus, light, was verified once again to work with temperature synergistically on plants, through the modulation of numerous biological processes. With the application of transcriptomic analysis, a substantial number of heat-responsive genes were detected involved in both light- and phytohormone-mediated pathways in Arabidopsis. During this process, phytoreceptor phyB acts as a molecular switch to turn on or turn off several other genes HS response, under different light conditions. Furthermore, a morphological study showed the afunction of phyB enhanced plants thermal tolerance, confirming the important role of this phytochrome in temperature perception and response in plants. This study adds data to the picture of light and temperature signaling cross-talk in plants, which is important for the exploration of complicated HS responses or light-mediated mechanisms. Furthermore, based on its influence on Arabidopsis thermal response in both morphological and physiological levels, phyB is a photoreceptor, as revealed before, as well as an essential thermal sensor in plants.

Some cephalopods (squids, octopuses, and cuttlefishes) produce dynamic structural colors, for camouflage or communication. The key to this remarkable capability is one group of specialized cells called iridocytes, which contain aligned membrane-enclosed platelets of high-reflective reflectins and work as intracellular Bragg reflectors. These reflectins have unusual amino acid compositions and sequential properties, which endows them with functional characteristics: an extremely high reflective index among natural proteins and the ability to answer various environmental stimuli. Based on their unique material composition and responsive self-organization properties, the material community has developed an impressive array of reflectin- or iridocyte-inspired optical systems with distinct tunable reflectance according to a series of internal and external factors. More recently, scientists have made creative attempts to engineer mammalian cells to explore the function potentials of reflectin proteins as well as their working mechanism in the cellular environment. Progress in wide scientific areas (biophysics, genomics, gene editing, etc.) brings in new opportunities to better understand reflectins and new approaches to fully utilize them. The work introduced the composition features, biochemical properties, the latest developments, future considerations of reflectins, and their inspiration applications to give newcomers a comprehensive understanding and mutually exchanged knowledge from different communities (e.g., biology and material).

Proteins, as gifts from nature, provide structure, sequence, and function templates for designing biomaterials. Here, we reported an engineered toolkit derived from a natural block copolymer, RfA1. RfA1 is composed of positively charged polyelectrolyte linker regions interspersed with highly conserved polyampholyte motifs. These linkers and motifs are constructional fragments and ready-to-use building blocks for synthetic design and construction. One functional and editable feature of RfA1 derivatives is their preferential distribution to cytoplasm or nucleoplasm, in a fragment-replication-determined manner. Based on this property, a prices spatiotemporal Tet-on demo was established, which effectively transports cargo peptides into nuclei at selective time points. Moreover, the functional homogeneities of either motifs or linkers were also verified, making them standardized building blocks for synthetic biology. In summary, this study provides a modularized, orthotropic and well-characterized toolkit for precise and spatiotemporal regulation of protein nucleocytoplasmic localization.