Related papers: Single cell mechanics: stress stiffening and kinem…
Cell mechanical functions like locomotion, contraction and division are controlled by the cytoskeleton, a dynamic biopolymer network whose mechanical properties remain poorly understood. We perform single-cell uniaxial stretching…
Mechanical characteristics of single biological cells are used to identify and possibly leverage interesting differences among cells or cell populations. Fluidity---hysteresivity normalized to the extremes of an elastic solid or a viscous…
The connection between the properties of cell tissue and those of the single constituent cells remains to be elucidated. At the purely mechanical level, the degree of rigidity of different cellular components, such as the nucleus and the…
Cell layers eliminate unwanted cells through the extrusion process, which underlines healthy versus flawed tissue behaviors. Although several biochemical pathways have been identified, the underlying mechanical basis including the forces…
The mechanical properties of cells are dominated by the cytoskeleton, an interconnected network of long elastic filaments. The connections between the filaments are provided by crosslinking proteins, which constitute, next to the filaments,…
The mechanics of crawling cells on a substrate is investigated by using a minimal model that satisfies the force-free condition. A cell is described by two subcellular elements connected by a linear actuator that changes the length of the…
While mechanobiology has demonstrated that precise control over mechanical properties at the whole-cell level is crucial for many biological functions, comparatively little attention has been paid to the intracellular mechanical properties.…
Biological cells are built up from many different constituents of varying size and stiffness which all contribute to the cell's mechanical properties. Despite this heterogeneity, in the analysis of experimental measurements such as atomic…
Everyday experience shows that cellular sheets are stiffened by the presence of a pressurized gas: from bicycle inner tubes to bubble wrap, the presence of an internal pressure increases the stiffness of otherwise floppy structures. The…
Both animal and plant tissue exhibit a nonlinear rheological phenomenon known as compression stiffening, or an increase in moduli with increasing uniaxial compressive strain. Does such a phenomenon exist in single cells, which are the…
The mechanics of animal cells is strongly determined by stress fibers, which are contractile filament bundles that form dynamically in response to extracellular cues. Stress fibers allow the cell to adapt its mechanics to environmental…
In this paper homogenization of a mathematical model for biomechanics of a plant tissue with randomly distributed cells is considered. Mechanical properties of a plant tissue are modelled by a strongly coupled system of…
Mechanical cues from the extracellular microenvironment play a central role in regulating the structure, function and fate of living cells. Nevertheless, the precise nature of the mechanisms and processes underlying this crucial cellular…
It is increasingly being realized that liquid-crystalline features can play an important role in the properties and dynamics of cell monolayers. Here, we present a cell-based model of cell layers, based on the phase-field formulation, that…
Unlike most synthetic materials, biological materials often stiffen as they are deformed. This nonlinear elastic response, critical for the physiological function of some tissues, has been documented since at least the 19th century, but the…
Tuning of active prestress e.g. through activity of molecular motors constitutes a powerful cellular tool to adjust cellular stiffness through nonlinear material properties. Understanding this tool is an important prerequisite for our…
Investigations of natural variation in cell mechanics within a cell population are essential to understand the stochastic nature of soft-network deformation. Striking commonalities have been found concerning the average values and…
Cytoplasmic viscoelasticity is crucial for various intracellular processes. However, the dynamic shear modulus, $G(\omega)$, has been reported to vary considerably, often without consistent patterns or rules, even within the same cell.…
Live cells have ambiguous mechanical properties. They were often described as either elastic solids or viscoelastic fluids and have recently been classified as soft glassy materials characterized by weak power-law rheology. Nonlinear…
The initiation of directional cell motion requires symmetry breaking that can happen both with or without external stimuli. During cell crawling, forces generated by the cytoskeleton and their transmission through mechanosensitive adhesions…