Related papers: Force localization in contracting cell layers
Coordinated cellular movements are key processes in tissue morphogenesis. Using a cell-based modeling approach we study the dynamics of epithelial layers lining surfaces with constant and varying curvature. We demonstrate that extrinsic…
We investigate how randomly oriented cell traction forces lead to fluidisation in a vertex model of epithelial tissues. We find that the fluidisation occurs at a critical value of the traction force magnitude $F_c$. We show that this…
Biological cells embedded in fibrous matrices have been observed to form inter-cellular bands of dense and aligned fibers, through which they mechanically interact over long distances. Such matrix-mediated cellular interactions have been…
Biological cells in soft materials can be modeled as anisotropic force contraction dipoles. The corresponding elastic interaction potentials are long-ranged ($\sim 1/r^3$ with distance $r$) and depend sensitively on elastic constants,…
Partial localization is the phenomenon of self-aggregation of mass into high-density structures that are thin in one direction and extended in the others. We give a detailed study of an energy functional that arises in a simplified model…
Tissues are characterized by layers of functional units such as cells and extracellular matrix (ECM). Nevertheless, how dynamics at interlayer interfaces help transmit cellular forces in tissues remains overlooked. Here, we investigate a…
Protrusions at the leading-edge of a cell play an important role in sensing the extracellular cues, during cellular spreading and motility. Recent studies provided indications that these protrusions wrap (coil) around the extra-cellular…
Fiber-reinforcement is a universal feature of many biological tissues. It involves the interplay between fiber stiffness, fiber orientation, and the elastic properties of the matrix, influencing pattern formation and evolution in layered…
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…
Micropatterned substrates are often used to standardize cell experiments and to quantitatively study the relation between cell shape and function. Moreover, they are increasingly used in combination with traction force microscopy on soft…
Key to collective cell migration is the ability of cells to rearrange their position with respect to their neighbors. Recent theory and experiments demonstrated that cellular rearrangements are facilitated by cell shape, with cells having…
We present a statistical mechanical study of stiff polymers, motivated by experiments on actin filaments and the considerable current interest in polymer networks. We obtain simple, approximate analytical forms for the force-extension…
Cells exert traction forces on compliant substrates and can induce surface instabilities that appear as characteristic wrinkling patterns. Here, we develop a mechanical description of cell-induced wrinkling on soft substrates using a thin…
Epithelization, the process whereby an epithelium covers a cell-free surface, is not only central to wound healing but also pivotal in embryonic morphogenesis, regeneration, and cancer. In the context of wound healing, the epithelization…
The mechanical properties of the cell depend crucially on the tension of its cytoskeleton, a biopolymer network that is put under stress by active motor proteins. While the fibrous nature of the network is known to strongly affect the…
Adhering cells actively probe the mechanical properties of their environment and use the resulting information to position and orient themselves. We show that a large body of experimental observations can be consistently explained from one…
The development of traction-force microscopy, in the past two decades, has created the unprecedented opportunity of performing direct mechanical measurements on living cells as they adhere or crawl on uniform or micro-patterned substrates.…
The vertex model is a popular framework for modelling tightly packed biological cells, such as confluent epithelia. Cells are described by convex polygons tiling the plane and their equilibrium is found by minimizing a global mechanical…
The mechanics of epithelial tissues, which is governed by forces generated in various cell domains, is often investigated using two-dimensional models that account for the apically-positioned actomyosin structures but neglect basolateral…
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…