Related papers: Spontaneous contractility--mediated cortical flow …
Cellular self-assembly and organization are fundamental steps for the development of biological tissues. In this paper, within the framework of a cellular automata model, we address how an ordered tissue pattern spontaneously emerges from a…
Spatially localised defect structures emerge spontaneously in a hydrodynamic description of an active polar fluid comprising polar 'actin' filaments and 'myosin' motor proteins that (un)bind to filaments and exert active contractile…
Cell movement, for example during embryogenesis or tumor metastasis, is a complex dynamical process resulting from an intricate interplay of multiple components of the cellular migration machinery. At first sight, the paths of migrating…
Collective cell migration governs a range of physiological and pathological processes, from tissue morphogenesis to cancer invasion, in which topological defects arise as an inevitable consequence of frequent cellular rearrangement and…
We present a general dynamical theory of a membrane coupled to an actin cortex containing polymerizing filaments with active stresses and currents, and demonstrate that active membrane dynamics [Phys. Rev. Lett \textbf{84}, 3494 (2000)] and…
Rotational migration is one specific form of collective cell migration when epithelial cells are confined in a spherical geometry, such as in the epithelial acini. This tissue-level rotation motion is crucial for the morphogenesis of…
Cell spreading requires a major reorganisation of the actin cytoskeleton, from a cortical structure to a lamellipodium where filaments are mostly parallel to the substrate. We propose a model inspired by the physics of nematic liquid…
Animal cells form contractile structures to promote various functions, from cell motility to cell division. Force generation in these structures is often due to molecular motors such as myosin that require polar substrates for their…
The complex spatiotemporal flow patterns in living tissues, driven by active forces, have many of the characteristics associated with inertial turbulence even though the Reynolds number is extremely low. Analyses of experimental data from…
We present a continuum level analytical model of a droplet of active contractile fluid consisting of filaments and motors. We calculate the steady state flows that result from a splayed polarisation of the filaments. We account for the…
Crawling cell motility is vital to many biological processes such as wound healing and the immune response. Using a minimal model we investigate the effects of patterned substrate adhesiveness and biophysical cell parameters on the…
Oscillatory behaviour in force-generating systems is a pervasive phenomenon in cell biology. In this work, we investigate how oscillations in the actomyosin cytoskeleton drive cell shape changes during the process of Dorsal Closure, a…
We consider motility of keratocyte cells driven by myosin contraction and introduce a 2D free boundary model for such motion. This model generalizes a 1D model from [12] by combining a 2D Keller-Segel model and a Hele-Shaw type boundary…
Cells control fluid flows with a spatial and temporal precision that far exceeds the capabilities of current microfluidic technologies. Cells achieve this superior spatio-temporal control by harnessing dynamic networks of cytoskeleton and…
The actin cytoskeleton in living cells generates forces in conjunction with myosin motor proteins to directly and indirectly drive essential cellular processes. The semiflexible filaments of the cytoskeleton can respond nonlinearly to the…
Cell migration in fibreous extracellular matrix (ECM) is crucial to many physiological and pathological processes such as tissue regeneration, immune response and cancer progression. During migration, individual cells can generate active…
Collective cell migration in 3D extracellular matrix (ECM) is crucial to many physiological and pathological processes. Migrating cells can generate active pulling forces via actin filament contraction, which are transmitted to the ECM…
Active matter locally converts chemical energy into mechanical work and, for this reason, it provides new mechanisms of pattern formation. In particular, active gels made of protein motors and filaments are far-from-equilibrium systems that…
Cell motility is fundamental to many biological processes, and cells exhibit a variety of migration patterns. Many motile cell types follow a universal law that connects their speed and persistency, a property that can originate from the…
Recent biological experiments have shown that certain types of cells are able to move in structured and confined environment even without the activation of focal adhesion. Focusing on this particular phenomenon and based on previous works,…