Related papers: Contractile network models for adherent cells
Cells actively probe and respond to the stiffness of their surroundings. Since mechanosensory cells in connective tissue are surrounded by a disordered network of biopolymers, their in vivo mechanical environment can be extremely…
Power grid networks, as well as neuronal networks with synaptic plasticity, describe real-world systems of tremendous importance for our daily life. The investigation of these seemingly unrelated types of dynamical networks has attracted…
Data describing the three-dimensional structure of physical networks is increasingly available, leading to a surge of interest in network science to explore the relationship between the shape and connectivity of physical networks. We…
Large-scale force generation is essential for biological functions such as cell motility, embryonic development, and muscle contraction. In these processes, forces generated at the molecular level by motor proteins are transmitted by…
Actin networks, acting as an engine pushing against an external load, are fundamentally important to cell motility. A measure of the effectiveness of an engine is the velocity the engine is able to produce at a given force, the…
The collective action of actively contractile units embedded in elastic biopolymer networks plays a crucial role in regulating the network's macroscopic mechanical response. Here, we investigate how the macroscopic boundary stress in model…
We investigate a continuum mechanical model for an adherent cell on two dimensional adhesive micropatterned substrates. The cell is modeled as an isotropic and homogeneous elastic material subject to uniform internal contractile stresses.…
Essentially all biology is active and dynamic. Biological entities autonomously sense, com- pute, and respond using energy-coupled ratchets that can produce force and do work. The cytoskeleton, along with its associated proteins and motors,…
Networks of elastic beams can deform either by stretching or bending of their members. The primary mode of deformation (bending or stretching) crucially depends on the specific details of the network architecture. In order to shed light on…
Actin filaments, crosslinkers and myosin molecular motors form contractile networks. For instance, the cell cortex is a thin network below the cell membrane ; contraction of the cell cortex allows cells to round up during cell division.…
Neuronal networks constitute a special class of dynamical systems, as they are formed by individual geometrical components, namely the neurons. In the existing literature, relatively little attention has been given to the influence of…
The initiation of directional cell motion requires symmetry breaking that can happen both with or without external stimuli. During cell crawling, forces generated by the cytoskeleton and their transmission through mechanosensitive adhesions…
We study a mixture of extensile and contractile cells using a vertex model extended to include active nematic stresses. The two cell populations phase separate over time. While phase separation strengthens monotonically with an increasing…
We study the dynamics and patterning of polar contractile filaments on the surface of a cylindrical cell using active hydrodynamic equations that incorporate couplings between curvature and filament orientation. Cables and rings…
It is a fundamental challenge to understand how the function of a network is related to its structural organization. Adaptive dynamical networks represent a broad class of systems that can change their connectivity over time depending on…
Epithelial cell layers on soft elastic substrates or pillar arrays are commonly used as model systems for investigating the role of force in tissue growth, maintenance and repair. Here we show analytically that the experimentally observed…
This paper describes how realistic neuromorphic networks can have their connectivity properties fully characterized in analytical fashion. By assuming that all neurons have the same shape and are regularly distributed along the…
Migratory and tissue resident cells exhibit highly branched morphologies to perform their function and to adapt to the microenvironment. Immune cells, for example, display transient branched shapes while exploring the surrounding tissues.…
Contractile forces are essential for many developmental processes involving cell shape change and tissue deformation. Recent experiments on reconstituted actomyosin networks, the major component of the contractile machinery, have shown that…
Understanding cellular response to mechanical forces is immensely important for a plethora of biological processes. Focal adhesions are multi-molecular protein assemblies that connect the cell to the extracellular matrix and play a pivotal…