Related papers: A microstructurally informed model for the mechani…
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…
The synthetic biopolymeric gels demand a great interest as bio-materials to mimic many biological scaffolding structures, which can contribute to a better understanding of the cytoskeleton-like structural building blocks and soft…
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…
We propose a predictive model for the mechanical behavior of biodegradable polymers of interest for biomedical applications. Starting from a detailed description of the network behavior of the copolymer material, taking care of bonds…
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,…
We study the micromechanics of collagen-I gel with the goal of bridging the gap between theory and experiment in the study of biopolymer networks. Three-dimensional images of fluorescently labeled collagen are obtained by confocal…
The structural reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton is facilitated through the action of motor proteins that crosslink the actin filaments and transport them relative to each other. Here, we present a combined experimental-computational…
We investigate the mechanical interplay between the spatial organization of the actin cytoskeleton and the shape of animal cells adhering on micropillar arrays. Using a combination of analytical work, computer simulations and in vitro…
The composite cytoskeleton, comprising interacting networks of semiflexible actin and rigid microtubules, actively generates forces and restructures using motor proteins such as myosins to enable key mechanical processes including cell…
We develop a formalism to describe the equilibrium distributions for segments of confined branched networks consisting of stiff filaments. This is applicable to certain situations of cytoskeleton in cells, such as for example actin…
The cytoskeleton protein actin assembles into large bundles when supporting stresses in the cell, but grows into a fine branched network to induce cell motion. Such self-organization processes are studied in artificial networks of…
Significant microstructural anisotropy is known to develop during shearing flow of attractive particle suspensions. These suspensions, and their capacity to form conductive networks, play a key role in flow-battery technology, among other…
The actin cytoskeleton is a semiflexible biopolymer network whose morphology is controlled by a wide range of biochemical and physical factors. Actin is known to undergo a phase transition from a single-filament state to a bundled state by…
The quantitative knowledge of interface anisotropy in lattice models is a major issue, both for the parametrization of continuum interface models, and for the analysis of experimental observations. In this paper, we focus on the anisotropy…
Active gels are a class of biologically-relevant material containing embedded agents that spontaneously generate forces acting on a sparse filament network. In vitro experiments of protein filaments and molecular motors have revealed a…
We develop a model for gels and entangled solutions of semiflexible biopolymers such as F-actin. Such networks play a crucial structural role in the cytoskeleton of cells. We show that the rheologic properties of these networks can result…
A micromechanically motivated phase-field damage model is proposed to investigate the fracture behaviour in crosslinked polyurethane adhesive. The crosslinked polyurethane adhesive typically show viscoelastic behaviour with geometric…
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…
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;…
For various cell types and for lamellipodial fragments on flat surfaces, externally induced and spontaneous transitions between symmetric nonmoving states and polarized migration have been observed. This behavior is indicative of…