Related papers: Active Polymers Confer Fast Reorganization Kinetic…
Motor-proteins are responsible for transport inside cells. Harnessing their activity is key towards developing new nano-technologies, or functional biomaterials. Cytoskeleton-like networks, recently tailored in vitro, result from the…
Biopolymer self-assembly pathways are central to biological activity, but are complicated by the ability of the monomeric subunits of biopolymers to adopt different conformational states. As a result, biopolymer nucleation often involves a…
Cytoskeletal gels are prototyped to reproduce the mechanical contraction of the cytoskeleton in-vitro. They are composed of a polymer network (backbone), swollen by the presence of a liquid solvent, and active molecules (molecular motors,…
Active processes in living systems generate nonequilibrium forces that deform embedded passive macromolecules. To understand how such dynamics influence polymer conformation, we study a flexible passive chain in an active nematic fluid.…
Here using LAMMPS molecular dynamics (MD) software, we simulate polymer translocation in 2 dimensions. We do the simulations for weak and moderate forces and for different pore diameters. Our results show that in both non-equilibrium and…
We present a microscopic model of a disordered viscoelastic active solid, i.e. an active material whose long time behaviour is elastic as opposed to viscous. It is composed of filaments, passive crosslinks and molecular motors powered by…
In cells, cytoskeletal filament networks are responsible for cell movement, growth, and division. Filaments in the cytoskeleton are driven and organized by crosslinking molecular motors. In reconstituted cytoskeletal systems, motor activity…
Equilibrium self-assembly and conventional materials processing techniques fall far short of mimicking dynamic self-actuating processes that are commonplace throughout biology. To bridge the gap between living and synthetic matter, we study…
While the dynamics of polymer chains in equilibrium media is well understood by now, the polymer dynamics in active non-equilibrium environments can be very different. Here we study the dynamics of polymers in a viscous medium containing…
A simple model of an active colloid consisting of dumbbell-shaped particles that cyclically change their length without propelling themselves is proposed and analyzed. At nanoscales, it represents an idealization for bacterial cytoplasm or…
We study active agents embedded in bulk or in confinement explicitly considering hydrodynamics and simulating the swimmers via an implementation inspired by the squirmer model. We develop a Dissipative Particle Dynamics scheme for the…
Polar polymer activity is a fundamental mechanism behind a large number of cellular dynamical processes. The number and location of the active sites on the polymer backbone play a central role in their dynamics and conformational…
Dynamically crosslinked semiflexible biopolymers such as the actin cytoskeleton govern the mechanical behavior of living cells. Semiflexible biopolymers nonlinearly stiffen in response to mechanical loads, whereas the crosslinker dynamics…
Many cellular processes require a polarization axis which generally initially emerges as an inhomogeneous distribution of molecular markers in the cell. We present a simple analytical model of a general mechanism of cell polarization taking…
Polymer-like structures are ubiquitous in nature and synthetic materials. Their configurational and migration properties are often affected by crowded environments leading to non-thermal fluctuations. Here, we study an ideal Rouse chain in…
In this work we study the assisted translocation of a polymer across a membrane nanopore, inside which a molecular motor exerts a force fuelled by the hydrolysis of ATP molecules. In our model the motor switches to its active state for a…
The configurations taken by polymers embedded in out-of-equilibrium baths may have broad effects in a variety of biological systems. As such, they have attracted considerable interest, particularly in simulation studies. Here we analyze the…
Active polymers are ubiquitous in nature, and often kicked by persistent noises that break detailed balance. In order to capture the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of such active polymers, we propose a simple yet reliable analytical framework…
With exquisite precision and reproducibility, cells orchestrate the cooperative action of thousands of nanometer-sized molecular motors to carry out mechanical tasks at much larger length scales, such as cell motility, division and…
Continuum models of active nematic gels have proved successful to describe a number of biological systems consisting of a population of rodlike motile subunits in a fluid environment. However, in order to get a thorough understanding of the…