Related papers: Hysteresis in the cell response to time-dependent …
A living cell actively generates traction forces on its environment with its actin cytoskeleton. These forces deform the cell elastic substrate which, in turn, affects the traction forces exerted by the cell and can consequently modify the…
Adhesive interactions between elastic structures such as graphene sheets, carbon nanotubes, and microtubules have been shown to exhibit hysteresis due to irrecoverable energy loss associated with bond breakage, even in static…
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 conditions under which biological cells switch from a static to a motile state are fundamental to the understanding of many healthy and pathological processes. In this paper, we show that even in the presence of a fully symmetric…
Cell fate determination, the process through which cells commit to differentiated states is commonly mediated by gene regulatory motifs with mutually exclusive expression states. The classical deterministic picture for cell fate…
Living cells inherently reorganize their intracellular structures in response to mechanical cues from their environment. Among these responses, the formation of actin-based stress fibers exhibits a series of structural transitions depending…
Mechanical coupling between a cell and substrate relies on focal adhesions, clusters of adhesion proteins linking stress fibers (bundles of actin proteins) inside the cell with surrounding tissue. Focal adhesions have been demonstrated to…
The behaviour and fate of tissue cells is controlled by the rigidity and geometry of their adhesive environment, possibly through forces localized to sites of adhesion. We introduce a mechanical model that predicts cellular force…
The sliding friction force exerted by stochastic linkers interacting with a moving filament is calculated. The elastic properties of the substrate on which the linkers are anchored are shown to strongly influence the friction force. In some…
The interaction of the actin cytoskeleton with cell-substrate adhesions is necessary for cell migration. While the trajectories of motile cells have a stochastic character, investigations of cell motility mechanisms rarely elaborate on the…
Animal cells are active, contractile objects. While bioassays address the molecular characterization of cell contractility, the mechanical characterization of the active forces in cells remains challenging. Here by confronting theoretical…
Bistability is a major mechanism for cellular decision making and usually results from positive feedback in biochemical control systems. Here we show theoretically that bistability between unbound and bound states of adhesion clusters…
The crawling motion of Dictyostelium discoideum on substrata involves a number of coordinated events including cell contractions and cell protrusions. The mechanical forces exerted on the substratum during these contractions have recently…
Adhesion-dependent cells actively sense the mechanical properties of their environment through mechanotransductory processes at focal adhesions, which are integrin-based contacts connecting the extracellular matrix to the cytoskeleton. Here…
The magnitude of traction forces exerted by living animal cells on their environment is a monotonically increasing and approximately sigmoidal function of the stiffness of the external medium. This observation is rationalized using active…
The initiation of directional cell motion requires symmetry breaking that can happen both with or without external stimuli. During cell crawling, forces generated by the cytoskeleton and their transmission through mechanosensitive adhesions…
The motility of a cell can be triggered or inhibited not only by an applied force but also by a mechanically neutral force couple. This type of loading, represented by an applied stress and commonly interpreted as either squeezing or…
We study a model of contraction-based cell motility inside a microchannel to investigate the regulation of cell polarization and motion by the mechanical resistance of the environment. A positive feedback between the asymmetry of the…
Tuning of active prestress e.g. through activity of molecular motors constitutes a powerful cellular tool to adjust cellular stiffness through nonlinear material properties. Understanding this tool is an important prerequisite for our…
During animal development and homeostasis, the structure of tissues, including muscles, blood vessels and connective tissues adapts to mechanical strains in the extracellular matrix (ECM). These strains originate from the differential…