Related papers: Mechanical model for a collagen fibril pair in ext…

The actin cortex of an animal cell is a thin polymeric layer attached to the inner side of the plasma membrane. It plays a key role in shape regulation and pattern formation on the cellular and tissue scale and, in particular, generates the…

Adhering cells actively probe the mechanical properties of their environment and use the resulting information to position and orient themselves. We show that a large body of experimental observations can be consistently explained from one…

This article reviews the mechanical bidomain model, a mathematical description how the extracellular matrix and intracellular cytoskeleton are coupled by integrin proteins. The fundamental hypothesis is that differences between…

In multicellular systems, adhesion complexes, such as those composed of E-cadherin and associated catenins, mechanically couple neighboring cells by directly linking their actin-based cytoskeletal assemblies. However, the mechanics of how…

Understanding cellular response to mechanical forces is immensely important for a plethora of biological processes. Focal adhesions are multi-molecular protein assemblies that connect the cell to the extracellular matrix and play a pivotal…

Biological macromolecules including nucleic acids, proteins, and glycosaminoglycans are typically anionic and can span domains of up to hundreds of nanometers and even micron length scales. The structures exist in crowded environments that…

Bone is mineralized tissue constituting the skeletal system, supporting and protecting body organs and tissues. At the molecular level, mineralized collagen fibril is the basic building block of bone tissue, and hence, understanding bone…

The dynamics of cellular pattern formation is crucial for understanding embryonic development and tissue morphogenesis. Recent studies have shown that human dermal fibroblasts cultured on liquid crystal elastomers can exhibit an increase in…

The mechanisms by which organs acquire their functional structure and realize its maintenance (or homeostasis) over time are still largely unknown. In this paper, we investigate this question on adipose tissue. Adipose tissue can represent…

Biomimetic hydrogels based on natural polymers are a promising class of biomaterial, mimicking the natural extra-cellular matrix of biological tissues and providing cues for cell attachment, proliferation and differentiation. With a view to…

Type I collagen fibrils have circular cross sections with radii mostly distributed in between 50 and 100 nm and are characterized by an axial banding pattern with a period of 67 nm. The constituent long molecules of those fibrils, the…

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…

Responding mechanically to environmental requests, muscles show a surprisingly large variety of functions. The studies of in vivo cycling muscles qualified skeletal muscles into four principal locomotor patterns: motor, brake, strut, and…

We construct a homogeneous, nonlinear elastic constitutive law, that models aspects of the mechanical behavior of inhomogeneous fibrin networks. Fibers in such networks buckle when in compression. We model this as a loss of stiffness in…

Mechanically induced folding of passive cross-linkers is a fundamental biological phenomenon. A typical example is a conformational change in myosin II responsible for the power-stroke in skeletal muscles. In this paper we present an…

Mechanical forces influence the development and behavior of biological tissues. In many situations these forces are exerted or resisted by elastic compliant structures such as the own-tissue cellular matrix or other surrounding tissues.…

Several experiments have demonstrated the existence of an electro-mechanical effect in many biological tissues and hydrogels, and its actual influence on growth, migration, and pattern formation. Here, to model these interactions and…

Neuronal circuits arise as axons and dendrites extend, navigate, and connect to target cells. Axonal growth, in particular, integrates deterministic guidance from substrate mechanics and geometry with stochastic fluctuations generated by…

In vivo, eukaryotic cells are embedded in a matrix environment, where they grow and develop. Generally, this extracellular matrix (ECM) is an anisotropic fibrous structure, through which macromolecules and biochemical signaling molecules at…

Previous models of the cerebrovascular smooth muscle cell have not addressed the interaction between the electrical, chemical and mechanical components of cell function during the development of active tension. These models are primarily…