Related papers: Effect of adhesion geometry and rigidity on cellul…
One of the most unique physical features of cell adhesion to external surfaces is the active generation of mechanical force at the cell-material interface. This includes pulling forces generated by contractile polymer bundles and networks,…
We present a minimal continuum model of strongly adhering cells as active contractile isotropic media and use the model to study the effect of the geometry of the adhesion patch in controlling the spatial distribution of traction and…
Cell-cell adhesion is one the most fundamental mechanisms regulating collective cell migration during tissue development, homeostasis and repair, allowing cell populations to self-organize and eventually form and maintain complex tissue…
The development of traction-force microscopy, in the past two decades, has created the unprecedented opportunity of performing direct mechanical measurements on living cells as they adhere or crawl on uniform or micro-patterned substrates.…
The optimal shapes attained by contractile cells on adhesive substrates are determined by the interplay between intracellular forces and adhesion with the extracellular matrix. We model the cell as a contractile film bounded by an elastic…
Adhesive cell-substrate interactions are crucial for cell motility and are responsible for the necessary traction that propels cells. These interactions can also change the shape of the cell, analogous to liquid droplet wetting on adhesive…
Cells sense the geometry and stiffness of their adhesive environment by active contractility. For strong adhesion to flat substrates, two-dimensional contractile network models can be used to understand how force is distributed throughout…
Animal cells are active, contractile objects. While bioassays address the molecular characterization of cell contractility, the mechanical characterization of the active forces in cells remains challenging. Here by confronting theoretical…
Cell cell and cell matrix adhesions are fundamental in all multicellular organisms. They play a key role in cellular growth, differentiation, pattern formation and migration. Cell-cell adhesion is substantial in the immune response,…
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…
Cells exhibit qualitatively different behaviors on substrates with different rigidities. The fact that cells are more polarized on the stiffer substrate motivates us to construct a two-dimensional cell with the distribution of focal…
Cell invasion and spatial pattern formation are two distinct manifestations of cellular self-organisation in development, regeneration, and disease. Here, we develop and analyse a unified theoretical framework that links these two seemingly…
Cell migration plays a fundamental role in numerous physiological processes, including embryonic development, wound healing, and cancer metastasis. While cell-cell adhesion is known to regulate motion by shaping cell morphology and…
Epithelial cell layers on soft elastic substrates or pillar arrays are commonly used as model systems for investigating the role of force in tissue growth, maintenance and repair. Here we show analytically that the experimentally observed…
The evolution of various competing cell types in tissues, and the resulting persistent tissue population, is studied numerically and analytically in a particle-based model of active tissues. Mutations change the properties of cells in…
It is known that mechanical interactions couple a cell to its neighbors, enabling a feedback loop to regulate tissue growth. However, the interplay between cell-cell adhesion strength, local cell density and force fluctuations in regulating…
We apply a recently developed model of cytoskeletal force generation to study a cell intrinsic contractility, as well as its response to external loading. The model is based on a non-equilibrium thermodynamic treatment of the…
We investigate the geometrical and mechanical properties of adherent cells characterized by a highly anisotropic actin cytoskeleton. Using a combination of theoretical work and experiments on micropillar arrays, we demonstrate that the…
The initiation of directional cell motion requires symmetry breaking that can happen both with or without external stimuli. During cell crawling, forces generated by the cytoskeleton and their transmission through mechanosensitive adhesions…
Many animal cells change their shape depending on the stiffness of the substrate on which they are cultured: they assume small, rounded shapes in soft ECMs, they elongate within stiffer ECMs, and flatten out on hard substrates. Cells tend…