Related papers: PAKing up to the endothelium
Bone marrow stromal cells (BMSC) -- which include skeletal stem cells -- are a promising tool in regenerative medicine. However, their heterogeneous and unpredictable in vivo behaviour remains a critical barrier preventing the development…
Biological cells are able to generate intricate structures and respond to external stimuli, sculpting their membrane from within. Simplified biomimetic systems can aid in understanding the principles which govern these shape changes and…
In this perspective article, a clinically inspired phenotype-driven experimental approach is put forward to address the challenge of the adaptive response of solid cancers to small-molecule targeted therapies. A list of conditions is…
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…
We study numerically the dynamics of conduction blocks using a detailed electrophysiological model. We find that this dynamics depends critically on the size of the paced region. Small pacing regions lead to stationary conduction blocks…
Certain short polycations, such as TAT and oligoarginine, rapidly pass through the plasma membranes of mammalian cells by a mechanism called transduction, as well as by endocytosis and macropinocytosis. These cell-penetrating peptides…
Neuronal circuits arise as axons and dendrites extend, navigate, and connect to target cells. Axonal growth, in particular, integrates deterministic guidance from substrate mechanics and geometry with stochastic fluctuations generated by…
Deciphering the control principles of metabolism and its interaction with other cellular functions is central to biomedicine and biotechnology. Yet, understanding the efficient control of metabolic fluxes remains elusive for large-scale…
The nucleotides ATP and ADP regulate many aspects of endothelial cell (EC) biology, including intracellular calcium concentrations, focal adhesion activation, cytoskeletal organization, and cellular motility. In vivo, ECs are constantly…
The multifarious internal workings of organisms are difficult to reconcile with a single feature defining a state of being alive. Indeed, definitions of life rely on emergent properties (growth, capacity to evolve, agency) only symptomatic…
Pathogenic bacteria present a large disease burden on human health. Control of these pathogens is hampered by rampant lateral gene transfer, whereby pathogenic strains may acquire genes conferring resistance to common antibiotics. Here we…
Morphogenesis depends crucially on the complex rheological properties of cell tissues and on their ability to maintain mechanical integrity while rearranging at long times. In this paper, we study the rheology of polygonal cellular networks…
Cell polarization and directional cell migration can display random, persistent and oscillatory dynamic patterns. However, it is not clear if these polarity patterns can be explained by the same underlying regulatory mechanism. Here, we…
Cellular membranes exhibit a large variety of shapes, strongly coupled to their function. Many biological processes involve dynamic reshaping of membranes, usually mediated by proteins. This interaction works both ways: while proteins…
A blood cell lineage consists of several consecutive developmental stages from the pluripotent or multipotent stem cell to a particular stage of terminally differentiated cells. There is considerable interest in identifying the key…
During angiogenesis, new blood vessels headed by a migrating endothelial tip cell sprout from pre-existing ones. This process is known to be regulated by two signaling pathways concurrently, vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA) and…
Axon guidance (AG) towards their target during embryogenesis or after injury is an important issue in the development of neuronal networks. During their growth, axons often face complex decisions that are difficult to understand when…
Heterogeneity is ubiquitous in stem cells (SC), cancer cells (CS), and cancer stem cells (CSC). SC and CSC heterogeneity is manifested as diverse sub-populations with self-renewing and unique regeneration capacity. Moreover, the CSC progeny…
In the end of the second decade of 20th century, Warburg showed how cancer cells present a fermentative respiration process, related to a metabolic injury. Here, we develop an analysis of the cell process based on its heat outflow, in order…
In this paper, we study how cytoskeletal remodeling is correlated to changes in subcellular microrheology. We analyze the changes in the magnitude and directionality of the shear and elastic moduli of bovine aortic endothelial cells (BAECs)…