Related papers: Hysteresis in the cell response to time-dependent …
The actin cortex is a thin layer of actin filaments and myosin motors beneath the outer membrane of animal cells. It determines the cells' mechanical properties and forms important morphological structures. Physical descriptions of the…
Constructing physical models of living cells and tissues is an extremely challenging task because of the high complexities of both intra- and intercellular processes. In addition, the force that a single cell generates vanishes in total due…
Cells actively probe and respond to the stiffness of their surroundings. Since mechanosensory cells in connective tissue are surrounded by a disordered network of biopolymers, their in vivo mechanical environment can be extremely…
Bifunctional enzymes, which catalyze both the forward and reverse steps of a substrate modification reaction, arise naturally in bacterial two-component signaling systems and metabolic regulation. Beyond their well-known role in conferring…
In structure-based models of proteins, one often assumes that folding is accomplished when all contacts are established. This assumption may frequently lead to a conceptual problem that folding takes place in a temperature region of very…
Despite significant advances in understanding neuronal development, a fully quantitative framework that integrates intracellular mechanisms with environmental cues during axonal growth remains incomplete. Here, we present a unified…
The shape that stem cells reach at the end of adhesion process influences their differentiation. Rearrangement of cytoskeleton and modification of intracellular tension may activate mechanotransduction pathways controlling cell commitment.…
Physical systems exhibiting hysteresis are increasingly being used in neuromorphic and in-memory computing research. Generally, the resistance switching of devices with rate-independent hysteresis are being investigated for their use as…
Cellular decision-making (CDM) is a dynamic phenomenon often controlled by regulatory networks defining interactions between genes and transcription factor proteins. Traditional studies have focussed on molecular switches such as positive…
Mechanical properties of the tissue engineering scaffolds are known to play a crucial role in tissue regeneration. Here, we have utilized discrete network and finite element models to study fibrous scaffold mechanics and its dependence on…
Catch-bonds, whereby noncovalent ligand-receptor interactions are counterintuitively reinforced by tensile forces, play a major role in cell adhesion under mechanical stress. A basic prerequisite for catch-bond formation is that…
Mechanical forces acting on cell adhesion receptor proteins regulate a range of cellular functions by formation and rupture of non-covalent interactions with ligands. Typically, force decreases the lifetimes of intact complexes…
Cells are dynamic systems characterized by temporal variations in biophysical properties such as stiffness and contractility. Recent studies show that the recruitment and release of actin filaments into and out of the cell cortex - a…
Hysteresis can be found in driven many-body systems such as magnets and superfluids. Rate-dependent hysteresis arises when a system is driven periodically while relaxing towards equilibrium. A two-state paramagnet driven by an oscillating…
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…
Cell membrane tension directly influences various cellular functions. In this study, we developed a method to estimate surface tension from time-series data. We obtained the curvature-velocity relationship from time-series of binarized cell…
The simulation of inelastic effects in flexible slender technical devices has become of increasing interest in the past years. Different approaches have been considered depending on the effects relevant for the specific application.…
The production of mechanical stresses in living organisms largely relies on localized, force-generating active units embedded in filamentous matrices. Numerical simulations of discrete fiber networks with fixed boundaries have shown that…
Understanding how antibiotics inhibit bacteria can help to reduce antibiotic use and hence avoid antimicrobial resistance - yet few theoretical models exist for bacterial growth inhibition by a clinically relevant antibiotic treatment…
We study both theoretically and experimentally switching dynamics in surface stabilized ferroelectric liquid crystal cells with asymmetric boundary conditions. In these cells the bounding surfaces are treated differently to produce…