Related papers: Force localization in contracting cell layers
Stress propagation in nonlinear media is crucial in cell biology, where molecular motors exert anisotropic force dipoles on the fibrous cytoskeleton. While the force dipoles can be either contractile or expansile, a medium made of fibers…
Eukaryotic cells possess motility mechanisms allowing them not only to self-propel but also to exert forces on obstacles (to push) and to carry cargoes (to pull). To study the inherent asymmetry between active pushing and pulling we model a…
The sliding friction force exerted by stochastic linkers interacting with a moving filament is calculated. The elastic properties of the substrate on which the linkers are anchored are shown to strongly influence the friction force. In some…
Cellular contractility, migration, and extracellular matrix (ECM) mechanics are critical for a wide range of biological processes including embryonic development, wound healing, tissue morphogenesis, and regeneration. Even though the…
Experimental measurements of contact forces are limited to spheres and disks in three and two dimensions, making the evaluation of the shape effect and universality of force distributions and the comparison between experiments and theories…
How cells move through the three-dimensional extracellular matrix (ECM) is of increasing interest in attempts to understand important biological processes such as cancer metastasis. Just as in motion on flat surfaces, it is expected that…
Ever since the ground breaking work of Trepat et al. in 2009, we know that cell colonies growing on a substrate can be under tensile mechanical stress. The origin of tension has so far been attributed to cellular motility forces being…
Many biological and engineering materials have nonperiodic microstructures for which classical periodic homogenization results do not apply. Certain nonperiodic microstructures may be approximated by locally periodic microstructures for…
Living tissues experience various external forces on cells, influencing their behaviour, physiology, shape, gene expression, and destiny through interactions with their environment. Despite much research done in this area, challenges remain…
Mechanical stresses are increasingly found to be associated with various biological functionalities. At the same time, topological defects are being identified across a diverse range of biological systems and are points of localized…
The capillary forces exerted by liquid drops and bubbles on a soft solid are directly measured using molecular dynamics simulations. The force on the solid by the liquid near the contact line is not oriented along the liquid vapor interface…
The balance between stretching and bending deformations characterizes shape transitions of thin elastic sheets. While stretching dominates the mechanical response in tension, bending dominates in compression after an abrupt buckling…
The motion of flexible fibers through structured fluidic environments is ubiquitous in nature and industrial applications. Most often, their dynamics results from the complex interplay between internal elastic stresses, contact forces and…
There is compelling evidence that substrate stiffness affects cell adhesion as well as cytoskeleton organization and contractile activity. This work was designed to study the cytoskeletal contractile activity of cells plated on microposts…
Optimal characterization of the mechanical properties of both cells and their surrounding is an issue of major interest. Indeed, cell function and development are strongly influenced by external stimuli. Furthermore, a change in cell…
Cohesive zone models do not consider the lateral contraction of adhesive layers under tensile loads. The constraint of the lateral contraction by the adherents which depends on the geometry of the adhesive layer has a major influence on the…
The entropic force exerted by the Brownian fluctuations of a grafted semiflexible polymer upon a rigid smooth wall are calculated both analytically and by Monte Carlo simulations. Such forces are thought to play an important role for…
The mechanics of crawling cells on a substrate is investigated by using a minimal model that satisfies the force-free condition. A cell is described by two subcellular elements connected by a linear actuator that changes the length of the…
We develop a general continuum mechanics framework for active anisotropic plates within the F\"oppl-von K\'arm\'an limit, incorporating a preferential direction and inelastic active contractions in geometrically nonlinear plate theory.…
Recent advances in topological mechanics have revealed unusual phenomena such as topologically protected floppy modes and states of self-stress that are exponentially localized at boundaries and interfaces of mechanical networks. In this…