Related papers: Load fluctuations drive actin network growth

We propose a novel mechanism of cell motility, which relies on the coupling of actin polymerization at the cell membrane to geometric confinement. We consider a polymerizing viscoelastic cytoskeletal gel confined in a narrow channel, and…

While often believed to be a passive agent that merely exploits its host's metabolism, influenza virus has recently been shown to actively move across glycan-coated surfaces. This form of enzymatically driven surface motility is currently…

Understanding the role of non-equilibrium driving in self-organization is crucial for developing a predictive description of biological systems, yet it is impeded by their complexity. The actin cytoskeleton serves as a paradigm for how…

Active contributions to fluctuations are a direct consequence of metabolic energy consumption in living cells. Such metabolic processes continuously create active forces, which deform the membrane to control motility, proliferation as well…

Filopodia are actin-rich structures, present on the surface of practically every known eukaryotic cell. These structures play a pivotal role in specific cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions by allowing cells to explore their environment,…

Reconstituted filamentous actin networks with myosin motor proteins form active gels, in which motor proteins generate forces that drive the network far from equilibrium. This motor activity can also strongly affect the network elasticity;…

It is well known that many biochemical processes in the cell such as gene regulation, growth signals and activation of ion channels, rely on mechanical stimuli. However, the mechanism by which mechanical signals propagate through cells is…

Cells make use of semi-flexible biopolymers such as actin or intermediate filaments to control their local viscoelastic response by dynamically adjusting the concentration and type of cross-linker molecules. The microstructure of the…

While most chemical bonds weaken under the action of mechanical force (called slip bond behavior), nature has developed bonds that do the opposite: their lifetime increases as force is applied. While such catch bonds have been studied quite…

The motility of a fish keratocyte on a flat substrate exhibits two distinct regimes: the non-migrating and the migrating one. In both configurations the shape is fixed in time and, when the cell is moving, the velocity is constant in…

Cells and tissues exert forces and can actively change shape. This strikingly autonomous behavior is powered by the cytoskeleton, which includes an active gel of actin filaments, crosslinks, and myosin molecular motors. Although individual…

Actin flow in the cortical cytoskeleton underneath the cell membrane generates mechanical stresses that shape the cell surface. We study this mechanism using a hydrodynamic model of a compressible active gel polymerizing at the membrane and…

While actin bundles are used by living cells for structural fortification, the microscopic origin of the elasticity of bundled networks is not understood. Here, we show that above a critical concentration of the actin binding protein…

We extend a model for the morphology and dynamics of a crawling eukaryotic cell to describe cells on micropatterned substrates. This model couples cell morphology, adhesion, and cytoskeletal flow in response to active stresses induced by…

Molecular motors are essential to the living, they generate additional fluctuations that boost transport and assist assembly. Self-propelled colloids, that consume energy to move, hold similar potential for the man-made assembly of…

The muscle contraction, operation of ATP synthase, maintaining the shape of a cell are believed to be secured by motor proteins, which can be modelled using the Brownian ratchet mechanism. We consider the randomly flashing ratchet model of…

Cellular actin structures are continuously turned over while keeping similar sizes. Since they all compete for a shared pool of actin monomers, the question arises how they can coexist in these dynamic steady states. Recently, the…

We present a statistical mechanical study of stiff polymers, motivated by experiments on actin filaments and the considerable current interest in polymer networks. We obtain simple, approximate analytical forms for the force-extension…

Inspired by experiments on the actin driven propulsion of micrometer sized beads we develop and study a minimal mechanical model of a two-dimensional network of stiff elastic filaments grown from the surface of a cylinder. Starting out from…

Buckling instabilities driven by tissue growth underpin key developmental events such as the folding of the brain. Tissue growth is disordered due to cell-to-cell variability, but the effects of this variability on buckling are unknown.…