Related papers: Actin based propulsion: Intriguing interplay betwe…
Biological active materials such as bacterial biofilms and eukaryotic cells thrive in confined micro-spaces. Here, we show through numerical simulations that confinement can serve as a mechanical guidance to achieve distinct modes of…
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…
Theory and experiment have established that F-actin filaments are strongly attached to the intracellular parasites (such as Listeria) they propel with ``comet tails''. We consider the implications of these observations for propulsion. By…
The actin and microtubule cytoskeletons are vital structures for cell growth and development across all species. While individual molecular mechanisms underpinning actin and microtubule dynamics have been intensively studied, principles…
The hormone auxin is actively transported throughout plants via protein machineries including the dedicated transporter known as PIN. The associated transport is ordered with nearby cells driving auxin flux in similar directions. Here we…
Actin is a globular protein which forms long filaments in the eukaryotic cytoskeleton, whose roles in cell function include structural support, contractile activity to intracellular signalling. We model actin filaments as two chains of…
Motivated by recent experimental results for the step sizes of dynein motor proteins, we develope a cellular automata model for intra-cellular traffic of dynein motors incorporating special features of the hindrance-dependent step size of…
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…
The mechanisms driving the collective movement of cells remain poorly understood. To contribute toward resolving this mystery, a model was formulated to theoretically explore the possible functions of polarized cell-cell adhesion in…
Filopodia are actin-rich structures, present on the surface of practically every known eukaryotic cell. These structures play a pivotal role in specific cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions by allowing cells to explore their environment,…
Polymerization of actin proteins into dynamic structures is essential to eukaryotic cell life. This has motivated a large body of in vitro experiments measuring polymerization kinetics of individual filaments. Here we model these kinetics,…
Living systems often exhibit internal driving: active, molecular processes drive nonequilibrium phenomena such as metabolism or migration. Active gels constitute a fascinating class of internally driven matter, where molecular motors exert…
Numerous physical models have been proposed to explain how cell motility emerges from internal activity, mostly focused on how crawling motion arises from internal processes. Here we offer a classification of self-propulsion mechanisms…
Living cells adapt and respond actively to the mechanical properties of their environment. In addition to biochemical mechanotransduction, evidence exists for a myosin-dependent, purely mechanical sensitivity to the stiffness of the…
The actin cytoskeleton in living cells generates forces in conjunction with myosin motor proteins to directly and indirectly drive essential cellular processes. The semiflexible filaments of the cytoskeleton can respond nonlinearly to the…
The actin cytoskeleton is an active semi-flexible polymer network whose non-equilibrium properties coordinate both stable and contractile behaviors to maintain or change cell shape. While myosin motors drive the actin cytoskeleton…
Cells accomplish diverse functions using the same molecular building blocks, from setting up cytoplasmic flows to generating mechanical forces. In particular, transitions between these non-equilibrium states are triggered by regulating the…
Activity and renewability are distinctive features of living matter, and constitute a new class of materials that we term renewable active matter. A striking example is the cell cytoskeleton, where myosin filaments bind to the actin…
The crawling motility of many eukaryotic cells is driven by filamentous actin (F-actin), and regulated by a network of signaling proteins and lipids (including small GTPases). The tangle of positive and negative feedback loops gives rise to…
Active materials are capable of converting free energy into mechanical work to produce autonomous motion, and exhibit striking collective dynamics that biology relies on for essential functions. Controlling those dynamics and transport in…