Related papers: Microtubule Dynamics and Oscillating State for Mit…

We investigate the cooperative dynamics of an ensemble of N microtubules growing against an elastic barrier. Microtubules undergo so-called catastrophes, which are abrupt stochastic transitions from a growing to a shrinking state, and…

Microtubules self-organize to form part of the cellular cytoskeleton. They give cells their shape and play a crucial role in cell division and intracellular transport. Strikingly, microtubules driven by motor proteins reorganize into stable…

The migration of cells is relevant for processes such as morphogenesis, wound healing, and invasion of cancer cells. In order to move, single cells deform cyclically. However, it is not understood how these shape oscillations influence…

The motility of a fish keratocyte on a flat substrate exhibits two distinct regimes: the non-migrating and the migrating one. In both configurations the shape is fixed in time and, when the cell is moving, the velocity is constant in…

During the asymmetric division of the Caenorhabditis elegans nematode zygote, the polarity cues distribution and daughter cell fates depend on the correct positioning of the mitotic spindle, which results from both centering and cortical…

Single and collective cellular oscillations involving the actomyosin cytoskeleton have been observed in numerous biological systems. We show here that a generic model of a contractile material, which is turning over and contracts against an…

The muscle contraction, operation of ATP synthase, maintaining the shape of a cell are believed to be secured by motor proteins, which can be modelled using the Brownian ratchet mechanism. We consider the randomly flashing ratchet model of…

Microtubules are a major component of the cytoskeleton distinguished by highly dynamic behavior both in vitro and in vivo. We propose a general mathematical model that accounts for the growth, catastrophe, rescue and nucleation processes in…

We report the phenomenon of periodic shape oscillations occurring in 3T3 fibroblasts merely as a consequence of a loss of cell-substrate adhesion. The oscillatory behavior can last many hours at a constant frequency, and can be switched off…

We analyze a bubble forming system composed of particles with competing long range repulsive and short range attractive interactions driven over a quasi-one-dimensional periodic substrate. We find various pinned and sliding phases as a…

Formation of a magnetic hysteresis loop with respect to a bias voltage is investigated theoretically in a spin-valve device based on a single magnetic molecule. We consider a device consisting of two ferromagnetic electrodes bridged by a…

We derive a model describing spatio-temporal organization of an array of microtubules interacting via molecular motors. Starting from a stochastic model of inelastic polar rods with a generic anisotropic interaction kernel we obtain a set…

How chirality propagates across scales remains an open question in many biological and synthetic systems. An especially clear manifestation of this propagation is found in in vitro gliding assays of cytoskeletal filaments on surfaces,…

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,…

Eukaryotic cells intrinsically change their shape, by changing the composition of their membrane and by restructuring their underlying cytoskeleton. We present here further studies and extensions of a minimal physical model, describing a…

Theoretical study is performed of a single-mode polariton system with linear coupling of spin components. When combined with an ordinary two-particle interaction, the spin coupling involves a spontaneous symmetry breaking accompanied by a…

Motivated by the formation of ring-like filament structures in the cortex of plant and animal cells, we study the dynamics of a two-dimensional layer of cytoskeletal filaments and motor proteins near a surface by a general continuum theory.…

The plant microtubule cortical array is a striking feature of all growing plant cells. It consists of a more or less homogeneously distributed array of highly aligned microtubules connected to the inner side of the plasma membrane and…

We propose a mechanism of cell motility which is based on contraction and does not require protrusion. The contraction driven translocation of a cell is due to internal flow of the cytoskeleton generated by molecular motors. Each motor…

Cytoskeletal filaments transported by surface immobilized molecular motors with one end pinned to the surface have been observed to spiral in a myosin-driven actin 'gliding assay'. The radius of the spiral was shown to scale with motor…