Related papers: Cortical Factor Feedback Model for Cellular Locomo…
Many cellular processes rely on the cell's ability to transport material to and from the nucleus. Networks consisting of many microtubules and actin filaments are key to this transport. Recently, the inhibition of intracellular transport…
The cell cortex is a thin layer beneath the plasma membrane that gives animal cells mechanical resistance and drives most of their shape changes, from migration, division to multicellular morphogenesis. It is mainly composed of actin…
Spontaneous directed motion, a hallmark of cell biology, is unusual in classical statistical physics. Here we study, using both numerical and analytical methods, organized motion in models of the cytoskeleton in which constituents are…
The cytoskeleton is an active composite of filamentous proteins that dictates diverse mechanical properties and processes in eukaryotic cells by generating forces and autonomously restructuring itself. Enzymatic motors that act on the…
Biological cells can actively tune their intracellular architecture according to their overall shape. Here we explore the rheological implication of such coupling in a minimal model of a dense cellular material where each cell exerts an…
Cell crawling crucially depends on the collective dynamics of the acto-myosin cytoskeleton. However, it remains an open question to what extent cell polarization and persistent motion depend on continuous regulatory mechanisms and…
This manuscript uses a statistical mechanical approach to study the effect of the adhesion, through MOCA protein, on cell locomotion. The MOCA protein regulates cell-cell adhesion, and we explore its potential role in the cell movement. We…
Living cells move thanks to assemblies of actin filaments and myosin motors that range from very organized striated muscle tissue to disordered intracellular bundles. The mechanisms powering these disordered structures are debated, and all…
Processive molecular motors which drive the traffic of organelles in cells move in a directed way along cytoskeletal filaments. On large time scales, they perform motor walks, i.e., peculiar random walks which arise from the repeated…
Tissue remodelling in diverse developmental contexts require cell shape changes that have been associated with pulsation and flow of the actomyosin cytoskeleton. Here we describe the dynamics of the actomyosin cytoskeleton as a confined…
Stylized models of the neurodynamics that underpin sensory motor control in animals are proposed and studied. The voluntary motions of animals are typically initiated by high level intentions created in the primary cortex through a…
In eukaryotic cell chemotaxis, cells extend and retract transient actin-driven protrusions at their membrane that facilitate both the detection of external chemical gradients and directional movement via the formation of focal adhesions…
Cell polarization is a critical process that separates molecular species into two distinct regions in prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, guiding biological processes such as cell division and cell differentiation. Although several underlying…
The symmetry breaking of the actin network from radial to longitudinal symmetry has been identified as the major mechanism for keratocytes (fish cells) motility on solid substrate. For strong friction coefficient, the two dimensional actin…
The eukaryotic cell's cytoskeleton is a prototypical example of an active material: objects embedded within it are driven by molecular motors acting on the cytoskeleton, leading to anomalous diffusive behavior. Experiments tracking the…
Intracellular transport is vital for the proper functioning and survival of a cell. Cargo (proteins, vesicles, organelles, etc.) is transferred from its place of creation to its target locations via molecular motor assisted transport along…
Compartmentalization into biochemically distinct organelles constantly exchanging material is one of the hallmarks of eukaryotic cells. In the most naive picture of inter-organelle transport driven by concentration gradients, concentration…
The clarification of the motion alignment mechanism in collective cell migration is an important issue commonly in physics and biology. In analogy with the self-propelled disk, the polarity memory effect of eukaryotic cell is a fundamental…
We present a general theoretical framework to discuss mechanisms of morphogen transport and gradient formation in a cell layer. Trafficking events on the cellular scale lead to transport on larger scales. We discuss in particular the case…
Intracellular transport is essential for maintaining proper cellular function in most eukaryotic cells, with perturbations in active transport resulting in several types of disease. Efficient delivery of critical cargos to specific…