Related papers: The Geometry of Ciliary Dynamics
We consider the hydrodynamics of lipid bilayers containing transmembrane proteins of arbitrary shape. This biologically-motivated problem is relevant to the cell membrane, whose fluctuating dynamics play a key role in phenomena ranging from…
The modeling of the elastic properties of disordered or nanoscale solids requires the foundations of the theory of elasticity to be revisited, as one explores scales at which this theory may no longer hold. The only cases for which…
Colloids and proteins alike can bind to lipid bilayers and move laterally in these two-dimensional fluids. Inspired by proteins that generate membrane curvature, sense the underlying membrane geometry, and migrate to high curvature sites,…
Interactions between swimming cells and surfaces are essential to many microbiological processes, from bacterial biofilm formation to human fertilization. However, in spite of their fundamental importance, relatively little is known about…
The mechanical properties of cells, which influence the properties of the tissue they belong to, are controlled by various mechanisms. Bi et al. theoretically demonstrated that density-independent rigidity transition occurs in…
Biological tissues are active materials whose non-equilibrium dynamics emerge from distinct cellular force-generating mechanisms. Using a two-dimensional active foam model, we compare the effects of traction forces and junctional tension…
Cells are defined by lipid membranes that differ in their structure across the tree of life. While the membranes of most bacteria and eukaryotes consist of single-headed bilayer lipids, the membranes of archaea are composed of mixtures of…
Cells or bacteria carrying cilia on their surface show many striking features : alignment of cilia in an array, two-phase asymmetric beating for each cilium, coordination between cilia and existence of metachronal waves with a constant…
A first-principles theory is developed for the general evolution of a key structural characteristic of planar granular systems - the cell order distribution. The dynamic equations are constructed and solved in closed form for a number of…
Filamentous cyanobacteria can show fascinating examples of nonequilibrium self-organization, which however are not well-understood from a physical perspective. We investigate the motility and collective organization of colonies of these…
The balance between stretching and bending deformations characterizes shape transitions of thin elastic sheets. While stretching dominates the mechanical response in tension, bending dominates in compression after an abrupt buckling…
Activity can organize matter in unique configurations inaccessible to equilibrium systems, including a sundry of spiraling shapes seen in nature that range from galaxies to living tissues to fossilized stromatolites. How these dynamic yet…
Many-body interactions in systems of active matter can cause particles to move collectively and self-organize into dynamic structures with long-range order. In cells, the self-assembly of cytoskeletal filaments is critical for cellular…
Effective organismal behavior responds appropriately to changes in the surrounding environment. Attaining this delicate balance of sensitivity and stability is a hallmark of the animal kingdom. By studying the locomotory behavior of a…
Cilia and flagella are hairlike organelles that propel cells through fluid. The active motion of the axoneme, the motile structure inside cilia and flagella, is powered by molecular motors of the dynein family. These motors generate forces…
Tuning cell rearrangements is essential in collective cell movement that underlies cancer progression, wound repair, and embryonic development. A key question is how tissue material properties and morphology emerge from cellular factors…
Colloidal gels are formed through the aggregation of attractive particles, whose size ranges from 10~nm to a few micrometers, suspended in a liquid. Such gels are ubiquitous in everyday life applications, from food products to paints or…
Cilia and flagella are highly conserved slender organelles that exhibit a variety of rhythmic beating patterns from non-planar cone-like motions to planar wave-like deformations. Although their internal structure, composed of a…
From the perspective of physical properties, the cell membrane is an exotic two-dimensional material that has a dual nature: it exhibits characteristics of fluids, i.e., lipid molecules show lateral diffusion, while also demonstrating…
A cell membrane can be simply regarded as composite material consisting of lipid bilayer, membrane cytoskeleton beneath lipid bilayer, and proteins embedded in lipid bilayer and linked with membrane cytoskeleton if one only concerns its…