Related papers: Aging of dynamically stabilized microtubules
Inspired by recent experimental observation of patterning at the membrane of a living cell, we propose a generic model for the dynamics of a fluctuating interface driven by particle-like inclusions which stimulate its growth. We find that…
We study the dynamics of pattern formation in a minimal model for active mixtures made of microtubules and molecular motors. We monitor the evolution of the (conserved) microtubule density and of the (non-conserved) nematic order parameter,…
How self-organized networks develop, mature and degenerate is a key question for sociotechnical, cyberphysical and biological systems with potential applications from tackling violent extremism through to neurological diseases. So far, it…
Nonequilibrium dynamics of biomembranes with active inclusions is considered. The inclusions represent protein molecules which perform cyclic internal conformational motions driven by the energy brought with ATP ligands. As protein…
Cells are strongly out-of-equilibrium systems driven by continuous energy supply. They carry out many vital functions requiring active transport of various ingredients and organelles, some being small, others being large. The cytoskeleton,…
Biofilament-motor protein complexes are ubiquitous in biology and drive the transport of cargo vital for many fundamental cellular processes. As they move, motor proteins exert compressive forces on the filaments to which they are attached,…
We use single-particle tracking to study the elastic properties of single microtubules grafted to a substrate. Thermal fluctuations of the free microtubule's end are recorded, in order to measure position distribution functions from which…
Dynamic instability of microtubules is considered using frameworks of non-linear thermodynamics and non-equilibrium reaction-diffusion systems. Stochastic assembly/disassembly phases in the polymerization dynamics of microtubules are…
We study the steady state of an assembly of microtubules in a confined volume, analogous to the situation inside a cell where the cell boundary forms a natural barrier to growth. We show that the dynamical equations for growing and…
Microtubules (MTs) represent basic components of a cytoskeleton. The present work studies nonlinear dynamics of MTs assuming tangential oscillations of the dimers. We introduce a two component model and show that the dynamics of MTs can be…
The mortality rate of many complex multicellular organisms increase with age, which suggests that net aging damage is accumulative, despite remodeling processes. But how exactly do little mishaps in the cellular level accumulate and spread…
We study the over-damped dynamics of individual one-dimensional elastic filaments subjected to a chiral active force which propels each point of the filament at a fixed angle relative to the tangent vector of the filament at that point.…
Statically indeterminate systems are experimentally demonstrated to be in fact dynamical at the microscopic scale. Take the classic ladder-wall problem, for instance. Depending on the Young's modulus of the wall, it may take up to twenty…
Microtubules are an essential physical building block of cellular systems. They are organized using specific crosslinkers, motors, and influencers of nucleation and growth. With the addition of anti-parallel crosslinkers, microtubule…
Microtubule asters - radial arrays of microtubules organized by centrosomes - play a fundamental role in the spatial coordination of animal cells. The standard model of aster growth assumes a fixed number of microtubules originating from…
This paper describes an investigation into part of the mechanical mechanisms underlying the formation of mitotic spindle, the cellular machinery responsible for chromosomal separation during cell division. In normal eukaryotic cells,…
Magnetic domain structures are a fascinating area of study with interest deriving both from technological applications and fundamental scientific questions. The nature of the striped magnetic phases observed in ultra-thin films is one such…
The phase behavior of charged rods in the presence of inter-rod linkers is studied theoretically as a model for the equilibrium behavior underlying the organization of actin filaments by linker proteins in the cytoskeleton. The presence of…
The composite cytoskeleton, comprising interacting networks of semiflexible actin and rigid microtubules, actively generates forces and restructures using motor proteins such as myosins to enable key mechanical processes including cell…
A dynamic crack will travel in a straight path up to a material-dependent critical speed beyond which its path becomes erratic. Predicting this critical speed and discovering the origin of this instability are two outstanding problems in…