Related papers: Packing defects and the width of biopolymer bundle…
Viewed under a fluorescence microscope, the actomyosin cytoskeleton presents vivid streaks of lines together with persistent oscillatory waves. Using an active hydrodynamic approach, we show how a uniform distribution of single or mixture…
The semiflexible F-actin network of the cytoskeleton is cross-linked by a variety of proteins including filamin, which contain Ig-domains that unfold under applied tension. We examine a simple semiflexible network model cross-linked by such…
Protein molecules often self-assemble by means of non-covalent physical bonds to form extended filaments, such as amyloids, F-actin, intermediate filaments, and many others. The kinetics of filament growth is limited by the disassembly…
Current understanding of how contractility emerges in disordered actomyosin networks of non-muscle cells is still largely based on the intuition derived from earlier works on muscle contractility. This view, however, largely overlooks the…
Actin filaments are conductive to ionic currents, mechanical and voltage solitons. These travelling localisations can be utilised in making the actin network executing specific computing circuits. The propagation of localisations on a…
The fiber bundle model describes a collection of elastic fibers under load. the fibers fail successively and for each failure, the load distribution among the surviving fibers change. Even though very simple, the model captures the…
Biopolymer networks from the intracellular to tissue scale display high rigidity and tensile stress while having coordinations well below the normal threshold for mechanical rigidity. The elastic filaments in these networks are often…
The origin of large and small particle axial bands in long rotating tumblers is a long-standing question. Using DEM simulations, we show that this axial segregation is due to a Rayleigh-Taylor instability which is characterized by the fact…
We present a generic theory for the dynamics of a stiff filament under tension, in an active medium with orientational correlations, such as a microtubule in contractile actin. In sharp contrast to the case of a passive medium, we find the…
We use continuum theory to show that chirality is a key thermodynamic control parameter for the aggregation of biopolymers: chirality produces a stable disperse phase of hexagonal bundles under moderately poor solvent conditions, as has…
Cohesive assemblies of filaments are a common structural motif found in diverse contexts, ranging from biological materials such as fibrous proteins, to artificial materials such as carbon nanotube ropes and micropatterned filament arrays.…
Living cells dynamically modulate the local morphologies of their actin cytoskeletons to perform biological functions, including force transduction, intracellular transport, and cell division. A major challenge is to understand how diverse…
The actin cytoskeleton in living cells generates forces in conjunction with myosin motor proteins to directly and indirectly drive essential cellular processes. The semiflexible filaments of the cytoskeleton can respond nonlinearly to the…
Actin is a globular protein which forms long polar filaments in the eukaryotic cytoskeleton. Actin networks play a key role in cell mechanics and cell motility. They have also been implicated in information transmission and processing,…
Actin cytoskeletal protrusions in crawling cells, or lamellipodia, exhibit various morphological properties such as two characteristic peaks in the distribution of filament orientation with respect to the leading edge. To understand these…
Cytoskeletal networks of biopolymers are cross-linked by a variety of proteins. Experiments have shown that dynamic cross-linking with physiological linker proteins leads to complex stress relaxation and enables network flow at long times.…
The kinetics of the assembly of semiflexible filaments through end-to-end annealing is key to the structure of the cytoskeleton, but is not understood. We analyze this problem through scaling theory and simulations, and uncover a regime…
A recurring motif in the organization of biological tissues are networks of long, fibrillar protein strands effectively confined to cylindrical surfaces. Often, the fibers in such curved, quasi-2D geometries adopt a characteristic order:…
The directed polymerization of actin networks is an essential element of many biological processes, including cell migration. Different theoretical models considering the interplay between the underlying processes of polymerization, capping…
Living cells are soft bodies of a characteristic form, but endowed with a capacity for a steady turnover of their structures. Both of these material properties, i.e. recovery of the shape after an external stress has been imposed and…