Related papers: Effect of adhesion geometry and rigidity on cellul…
Contractile forces exerted on the surrounding extracellular matrix (ECM) lead to the alignment and stretching of constituent fibers within the vicinity of cells. As a consequence, the matrix reorganizes to form thick bundles of aligned…
In dense biological tissues, cell types performing different roles remain segregated by maintaining sharp interfaces. To better understand the mechanisms for such sharp compartmentalization, we study the effect of an imposed heterotypic…
Combining experiments with artificial intelligence algorithms, we propose a new machine learning based approach to extract the cellular force distributions from the microscope images. The full process can be divided into three steps. First,…
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…
The mechanics of epithelial tissues, which is governed by forces generated in various cell domains, is often investigated using two-dimensional models that account for the apically-positioned actomyosin structures but neglect basolateral…
Cells forming various epithelial tissues have a strikingly universal distribution for the number of their edges. It is generally assumed that this topological feature is predefined by the statistics of individual cell divisions in growing…
Cohesive zone models do not consider the lateral contraction of adhesive layers under tensile loads. The constraint of the lateral contraction by the adherents which depends on the geometry of the adhesive layer has a major influence on the…
Correlated velocity patterns and associated large length-scale transmission of traction forces have been observed in collective live cell migration as a response to a "wound". We argue that a simple physical model of a force-driven…
Plant morphology emerges from cellular growth and structure. The turgor-driven diffuse growth of a cell can be highly anisotropic: significant longitudinally and negligible radially. Such anisotropy is ensured by cellulose microfibrils…
We report detailed theoretical investigations of the micro-mechanics and bulk elastic properties of composites consisting of randomly distributed stiff fibers embedded in an elastic matrix in two and three dimensions. Recent experiments…
Cells self-organize into functional, ordered structures during tissue morphogenesis, a process that is evocative of colloidal self-assembly into engineered soft materials. Understanding how inter-cellular mechanical interactions may drive…
The adhesion of biomembranes is mediated by the binding of membrane-anchored receptor and ligand proteins. The proteins can only bind if the separation between apposing membranes is sufficiently close to the length of the protein complexes,…
Eukaryotic cells adhere to extracellular matrix during the normal development of the organism, forming static adhesion as well as during cell motility. We study this process by considering a simplified coarse-grained model of a vesicle that…
The paper present a model for the drag force between a resistive medium and a solid body using the hypothesis that the drag force is created by the adhesion of some particles of the resistive medium on the solid body's surface. The study…
Cells are dynamic systems characterized by temporal variations in biophysical properties such as stiffness and contractility. Recent studies show that the recruitment and release of actin filaments into and out of the cell cortex - a…
We present a stochastic model which describes fronts of cells invading a wound. In the model cells can move, proliferate, and experience cell-cell adhesion. We find several qualitatively different regimes of front motion and analyze the…
Collective cell migration plays a central role in tissue development, morphogenesis, wound repair and cancer progression. With the growing realization that physical forces mediate cell motility in development and physiology, a key…
We present a continuum model of the coupling between cells and substrate that accounts for some of the observed substrate-stiffness dependence of cell properties. The cell is modeled as an elastic active gel, adapting recently developed…
The motility of a cell can be triggered or inhibited not only by an applied force but also by a mechanically neutral force couple. This type of loading, represented by an applied stress and commonly interpreted as either squeezing or…
As a fundamental force, friction exerts a profound influence on various aspects of our daily lives across multiple disciplines. To understand why adhesive friction is associated with the contact area, here we investigate the generic sliding…