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A quantitative understanding of how cells interact with their extracellular matrix via molecular bonds is fundamental for many important processes in cell biology and engineering. In these interactions, the deformability of cells and matrix…

We present a theory of unbinding transitions for membranes that interact via short and long receptor/ligand bonds. The detail of unbinding behavior of the membranes is governed by the binding energies and concentrations of receptors and…

The adhesion of biological membranes is controlled by various types of receptor and ligand molecules. In this letter, we present a statistical-mechanical model for membranes that interact via receptor/ligand bonds of two different lengths.…

Focal adhesions are the loci of cellular adhesion to the extracellular matrix. At these sites, various integrins forge connections between the intracellular cytoskeleton and the outside world: large patches of multiple types of integrins…

Accurate prediction of protein-ligand binding affinity is crucial for rapid and efficient drug development. Recently, the importance of predicting binding affinity has led to increased attention on research that models the three-dimensional…

Biochemistry and mechanics are closely coupled in cell adhesion. At sites of cell-matrix adhesion, mechanical force triggers signaling through the Rho-pathway, which leads to structural reinforcement and increased contractility in the actin…

Protein phosphorylation is a reversible post-translational modification commonly used by cell signaling networks to transmit information about the extracellular environment into intracellular organelles for the regulation of the activity…

The aim of this paper is to study the qualitative behaviour predicted by a mathematical model for the initial stage of T cell activation. The state variables in the model are the concentrations of phosphorylation states of the T cell…

Cells continuously probe their environment with membrane receptors, achieving subsecond adaptation of their behaviour [1-3]. Recently, several receptors, including cadherins, were found to bind ligands with a lifetime of order of one…

The one-dimensional crawling movement of a cell is considered in this theoretical study. Our active gel model shows that for a cell with weakly mechanosensitive adhesion complexes, as myosin contractility increases, a cell starts to move at…

The ability of cells to sense and respond to the mechanical properties of their environments is fundamental to a range of cellular behaviours, with substrate stiffness increasingly being found to be a key signalling factor. Although active…

Modulation of the properties of AMPA receptors at the post-synaptic membrane is one of the main suggested mechanisms behind synaptic plasticity in the central nervous system of vertebrates. Electrophysiological recordings of single channels…

The actin cortex of an animal cell is a thin polymeric layer attached to the inner side of the plasma membrane. It plays a key role in shape regulation and pattern formation on the cellular and tissue scale and, in particular, generates the…

The experimental use of micropatterned quasi-1D substrates has emerged as an useful experimental tool to study the nature of cell-cell interactions and gain insight on collective behaviour of cell colonies. Inspired by these experiments, we…

Observations of single epidermal cells on flat adhesive substrates have revealed two distinct morphological and functional states, namely a non-migrating symmetric unpolarized state and a migrating asymmetric polarized state. These states…

Membrane proteins often form dimers and higher-order oligomers whose stability and spatial organization depend sensitively on their lipid environment. To investigate the physical principles underlying this coupling, we employ a lattice…

We study the ultrasensitivity of multisite binding processes where ligand molecules can bind to several binding sites, considering more particularly recent models involving complex chemical reactions in phosphorylation systems such as…

Receptor-ligand binding is a critical first step in signal transduction and the duration of the interaction can impact signal generation. In mammalian cells, clustering of receptors may be facilitated by heterogeneous zones of lipids, known…

Metropolis Monte Carlo simulation is used to investigate the elasticity of torsionally stressed double-stranded DNA, in which twist and supercoiling are incorporated as a natural result of base-stacking interaction and backbone bending…

Migration of animal cells is based on the interplay between actin polymerization at the front, adhesion along the cell-substrate interface, and actomyosin contractility at the back. Active gel theory has been used before to demonstrate that…