Related papers: Mechanical model for a collagen fibril pair in ext…
Bone is a multiscale heterogeneous materiel of which principal function is to support the body structure and to resist mechanical loading and fractures. Bone strength does not depend only on the quantity and quality of bone which is…
In cells, cytoskeletal filament networks are responsible for cell movement, growth, and division. Filaments in the cytoskeleton are driven and organized by crosslinking molecular motors. In reconstituted cytoskeletal systems, motor activity…
Collagen forms the structural scaffold of connective tissues in all mammals. Tissues are remarkably resistant against mechanical deformations because collagen molecules hierarchically self-assemble in fibrous networks that stiffen with…
In this communication, we propose a model to study the non-equilibrium process by which actin stress fibers develop force in contractile cells. The emphasis here is on the non-equilibrium thermodynamics, which is necessary to address the…
Regulation of contraction in striated muscle is controlled by a dual mechanism involving both thin filaments containing actin and thick filaments containing myosin. The thin filament is activated by calcium ions binding to troponin, leading…
The mechanics of cells is strongly affected by molecular motors that generate forces in the cellular cytoskeleton. We develop a model for cytoskeletal networks driven out of equilibrium by molecular motors exerting transient contractile…
Myosin motor is the machine, which performs mechanical work in the course of adenosine triphosphate molecule hydrolysis and myosin head conformations accompanying this process. For displacement of individual fragments of large molecule…
The spontaneous emergence of contraction-inducing electrical activity in the uterus at the beginning of labor remains poorly understood, partly due to the seemingly contradictory observation that isolated uterine cells are not spontaneously…
Collagen fibres play an important role in the mechanical behaviour of many soft tissues. Modelling of such tissues now often incorporates a collagen fibre distribution. However, the availability of accurate structural data has so far lagged…
Cilia and flagella are hair-like extensions of eukaryotic cells which generate oscillatory beat patterns that can propel micro-organisms and create fluid flows near cellular surfaces. The evolutionary highly conserved core of cilia and…
Biochemistry and mechanics are closely coupled in cell adhesion. At sites of cell-matrix adhesion, mechanical force triggers signaling through the Rho-pathway, which leads to structural reinforcement and increased contractility in the actin…
Arterial tissue failures lead to a number of clinical conditions that develop rapidly and unpredictably in vivo. Structural components and their interfacial mechanical strength of arterial tissue play a critical role in the process of…
Calcium (Ca2+) signalling is one of the most important mechanisms of information propagation in the body. In embryogenesis the interplay between Ca2+ signalling and mechanical forces is critical to the healthy development of an embryo but…
Through modelling and simulations we show that material instabilities play a dominant role in the mechanical behavior of the fibrous collagen Extracellular Matrix (ECM), as observed when the ECM is deformed by contractile biological cells.…
The one-dimensional crawling movement of a cell is considered in this theoretical study. Our active gel model shows that for a cell with weakly mechanosensitive adhesion complexes, as myosin contractility increases, a cell starts to move at…
Pattern formation and the mechanics of a mixture of actin filaments and myosin motors that is confined by a rigid membrane is investigated. By using a coarse-grained molecular dynamics model, we demonstrate that the competition between the…
We report the imaging of tendon, a connective tissue rich in collagen type I proteins, with Interferometric Second Harmonic Generation (I-SHG) microscopy. We observed that the noncentrosymmetric structural organization can be maintained…
Elastic confinements are an important component of many biological systems and dictate the transport properties of suspended particles under flow. In this chapter, we review the Brownian motion of a particle moving in the vicinity of a…
We propose a model for the mechanical behavior of protein materials. Based on a limited number of experimental macromolecular parameters (persistence and contour lengths, rate of unfolding dissipation) we obtain the macroscopic behavior of…
Collagen fibrils are the main structural component of load-bearing tissues such as tendons, ligaments, skin, the cornea of the eye, and the heart. The D-band of collagen fibrils is an axial periodic density modulation that can be easily…