Related papers: Microtubule Dynamics and Oscillating State for Mit…
We propose an alternative mechanism for intracellular cargo transport which results from motor induced longitudinal fluctuations of cytoskeletal microtubules (MT). The longitudinal fluctuations combined with transient cargo binding to the…
Mechanical oscillations are important for many cellular processes, e.g. the beating of cilia and flagella or the sensation of sound by hair cells. These dynamic states originate from spontaneous oscillations of molecular motors. A…
In inertial microfluidics lift forces cause a particle to migrate across streamlines to specific positions in the cross section of a microchannel. We control the rotational motion of a particle and demonstrate that this allows to manipulate…
We present a model for the spontaneous formation of a striated pattern in polymerizing microtubule solutions. It describes the buckling of a single microtubule (MT) bundle within an elastic network formed by other similarly aligned and…
We extend a model for the morphology and dynamics of a crawling eukaryotic cell to describe cells on micropatterned substrates. This model couples cell morphology, adhesion, and cytoskeletal flow in response to active stresses induced by…
We study in detail the recent suggestions by Tshiprut et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 016101 (2005)] to tune tribological properties at the nanoscale by subjecting a substrate to periodic mechanical oscillations. We show that both in…
Cell crawling crucially depends on the collective dynamics of the acto-myosin cytoskeleton. However, it remains an open question to what extent cell polarization and persistent motion depend on continuous regulatory mechanisms and…
Magnetotactic bacteria moving on circular orbits form hydrodynamically bound states. When close to a surface and with the tilting of the field in a direction close to the perpendicular to this surface these swarms move perpendicularly to…
Robust oscillations play crucial roles in a wide variety of biological processes and are often generated by deterministic mechanisms. However, stochastic fluctuations often generate complex perturbations of these deterministic oscillations,…
Autonomous oscillations in biological systems may have a biochemical origin or result from an interplay between force-generating and visco-elastic elements. In molecular motor assemblies the force-generating elements are molecular engines…
Weak magnetic fields and isotopes have been shown to influence biological processes; however, the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood, particularly because the corresponding interaction energies are far below thermal energies,…
Scattering of electrons by localized spins is the ultimate process enabling electrical detection and control of the magnetic state of a spin-doped material. At the molecular scale, this scattering is mediated by the electronic orbitals…
Biological tissues exhibit diverse mechanical and rheological behaviors during morphogenesis. While much is known about tissue phase transitions controlled by structural order and cell mechanics, key questions regarding how tissue-scale…
Active matter composed of self-propelled particles features fascinating self-organization phenomena, spanning from motility-induced phase separation to phototaxis to topological excitations depending on the nature and parameters of the…
Vibrated granular matter constitutes a useful system for studying the physics of active matter. Usually, self-propulsion is induced in grains through suitable asymmetry in the particle design. In this paper, we show that a symmetrical mini…
We present a simple and generic theoretical description of actin-based motility, where polymerization of filaments maintains propulsion. The dynamics is driven by polymerization kinetics at the filaments' free ends, crosslinking of the…
Biological activity gives rise to non-equilibrium fluctuations in the cytoplasm of cells; however, there are few methods to directly measure these fluctuations. Using a reconstituted actin cytoskeleton, we show that the bending dynamics of…
The interaction between actin filaments and microtubules is crucial for many eukaryotic cellular processes, such as, among others, cell polarization, cell motility and cellular wound healing. The importance of this interaction has long been…
Non-equilibrium processes which convert chemical energy into mechanical motion enable the motility of organisms. Bundles of inextensible filaments driven by energy transduction of molecular motors form essential components of micron-scale…
We present an experimental study of the motion of a solid sphere falling through a wormlike micellar fluid. While smaller or lighter spheres quickly reach a terminal velocity, larger or heavier spheres are found to oscillate in the…