Related papers: Contractile network models for adherent cells
The adhesion of cell membranes is mediated by the binding of membrane-anchored receptor and ligand proteins. In this article, we review recent results from simulations and theory that lead to novel insights on how the binding equilibrium…
Science is increasingly dominated by teams. Understanding patterns of scientific collaboration and their impacts on the productivity and evolution of disciplines is crucial to understand scientific processes. Electronic bibliography offers…
We introduce novel sets of measures with the goal of describing dynamical properties of force networks in dense particulate systems. The presented approach is based on persistent homology and allows for extracting precise, quantitative…
Physical networks are made of nodes and links that are physical objects embedded in a geometric space. Understanding how the mutual volume exclusion between these elements affects the structure and function of physical networks calls for a…
The production of mechanical stresses in living organisms largely relies on localized, force-generating active units embedded in filamentous matrices. Numerical simulations of discrete fiber networks with fixed boundaries have shown that…
Internally generated active stresses drive soft materials into architectures inaccessible to thermal self-assembly. We use a microtubule-based active fluid to assemble and irreversibly restructure actin-fascin networks. Subsequently, we…
We adapt the bialgebra and Hopf relations to expose internal structure in the ground state of a Hamiltonian with $Z_2$ topological order. Its tensor network description allows for exact contraction through simple diagrammatic rewrite rules.…
The relation between network structure and dynamics is determinant for the behavior of complex systems in numerous domains. An important long-standing problem concerns the properties of the networks that optimize the dynamics with respect…
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…
Tissues commonly consist of cells embedded within a fibrous biopolymer network. Whereas cell-free reconstituted biopolymer networks typically soften under applied uniaxial compression, various tissues, including liver, brain, and fat, have…
In multicellular systems, adhesion complexes, such as those composed of E-cadherin and associated catenins, mechanically couple neighboring cells by directly linking their actin-based cytoskeletal assemblies. However, the mechanics of how…
We use the annealed formulation of complex networks to study the dynamical behavior of disease spreading on both static and adaptive networked systems. This unifying approach relies on the annealed adjacency matrix, representing one network…
Modern communication networks are inherently complex in nature. First of all, they have a large number of heterogeneous components. Secondly, their connectivity is extremely dynamic. Nodes can come and go, links can be removed and added…
How can dense biological tissue maintain sharp boundaries between coexisting cell populations? We explore this question within a simple vertex model for cells, focusing on the role of topology and tissue surface tension. We show that the…
Many social, technological, biological, and economical systems are best described by weighted networks, whose properties and dynamics depend not only on their structures but also on the connection weights among their nodes. However, most…
We study the effect of varying wiring in excitable random networks in which connection weights change with activity to mold local resistance or facilitation due to fatigue. Dynamic attractors, corresponding to patterns of activity, are then…
Transport networks are crucial to the functioning of natural systems and technological infrastructures. For flow networks in many scenarios, such as rivers or blood vessels, acyclic networks (i.e., trees) are optimal structures when…
Two-dimensional shape-morphing networks are common in biological systems and have garnered attention due to their nontrivial physical properties that emanate from their cellular nature. Here, we present the fabrication and characterization…
Biological cells can actively tune their intracellular architecture according to their overall shape. Here we explore the rheological implication of such coupling in a minimal model of a dense cellular material where each cell exerts an…
We develop a geometric framework to study the structure and function of complex networks. We assume that hyperbolic geometry underlies these networks, and we show that with this assumption, heterogeneous degree distributions and strong…