Related papers: The Geometry of Ciliary Dynamics
Non-equilibrium processes which convert chemical energy into mechanical motion enable the motility of organisms. Bundles of inextensible filaments driven by energy transduction of molecular motors form essential components of micron-scale…
Organisms use hair-like cilia that beat in a metachronal fashion to actively transport fluid and suspended particles. Metachronal motion emerges due to a phase difference between beating cycles of neighboring cilia and appears as traveling…
Motile cilia are used by many eukaryotic cells to transport flow. Cilia-driven flows are important to many physiological functions, yet a deep understanding of the interplay between the mechanical structure of cilia and their physiological…
The origin of rigidity in disordered materials is an outstanding open problem in statistical physics. Previously, a class of 2D cellular models has been shown to undergo a rigidity transition controlled by a mechanical parameter that…
Biological processes, from morphogenesis to tumor invasion, spontaneously generate shear stresses inside living tissue. The mechanisms that govern the transmission of mechanical forces in epithelia and the collective response of the tissue…
We consider a finite-dimensional model for the motion of microscopic organisms whose propulsion exploits the action of a layer of cilia covering its surface. The model couples Newton's laws driving the organism, considered as a rigid body,…
Motile cilia beat in an asymmetric fashion in order to propel the surrounding fluid. When many cilia are located on a surface, their beating can synchronise such that their phases form metachronal waves. Here, we computationally study a…
Exploiting the "natural" frame of space curves, we formulate an intrinsic dynamics of twisted elastic filaments in viscous fluids. A pair of coupled nonlinear equations describing the temporal evolution of the filament's complex curvature…
On surfaces with many motile cilia, beats of the individual cilia coordinate to form metachronal waves. We present a theoretical framework that connects the dynamics of an individual cilium to the collective dynamics of a ciliary carpet via…
Recent experiments on monolayers of spindle-like cells plated on adhesive stripe-shaped domains have provided a convincing demonstration that certain types of collective phenomena in epithelia are well described by active nematic…
A generalized theory of the self-limiting assembly of twisted bundles of filaments and columns is presented. Bundles and fibers form in a broad variety of supramolecular systems, from biological to synthetic materials. A widely-invoked…
Fiberboids are active filaments trapped at the interface of two phases, able of harnessing energy (and matter) fluxes across the interface in order to produce a rolling-like self-propulsion. We discuss several table-top examples and develop…
Cellular locomotion often involves the motion of thin, elastic filaments, such as cilia and flagella, in viscous environments. The manuscript serves as a general introduction to the topic of modelling microscale elastohydrodynamics. We…
The mechanics of crawling cells on a substrate is investigated by using a minimal model that satisfies the force-free condition. A cell is described by two subcellular elements connected by a linear actuator that changes the length of the…
Left-right symmetry breaking is critical to vertebrate embryonic development; in many species this process begins with cilia-driven flow in a structure termed the `node'. Primary `whirling' cilia, tilted towards the posterior, transport…
Cilia and flagella are actively bending slender organelles, performing functions such as motility, feeding and embryonic symmetry breaking. We review the mechanics of viscous-dominated microscale flow, including time-reversal symmetry, drag…
Cilia and flagella in biological systems often show large scale cooperative behaviors such as the synchronization of their beats in "metachronal waves". These are beautiful examples of emergent dynamics in biology, and are essential for…
The mechanics of animal cells is strongly determined by stress fibers, which are contractile filament bundles that form dynamically in response to extracellular cues. Stress fibers allow the cell to adapt its mechanics to environmental…
The occurrence of coiled or helical morphologies is common in nature, from plant roots to DNA packaging into viral capsids, as well as in applications such as oil drilling processes. In many examples, chiral structures result from the…
Curvature in biological membranes can be generated by a variety of different molecular mechanisms such as protein scaffolding, lipid or protein asymmetry, cytoskeletal forces, etc. These mechanisms have the net effect of generating stresses…