Related papers: Active contractility in actomyosin networks
We study the effect of turnover of cross linkers, motors and filaments on the generation of a contractile stress in a network of filaments connected by passive crosslinkers and subjected to the forces exerted by molecular motors. We perform…
Stress generation by the actin cytoskeleton shapes cells and tissues. Despite impressive progress in live imaging and quantitative physical descriptions of cytoskeletal network dynamics, the connection between processes at molecular scales…
Mixtures of microtubules and molecular motors form active materials with diverse dynamical behaviors that vary based on their constituents' molecular properties. We map the non-equilibrium phase diagram of microtubules and tip-accumulating…
Cell shape changes, essential for processes such as motility or division, are controlled by the actomyosin cortex that actively remodels biological membranes. Their mechanisms can be deciphered in___vitro using biomimetic reconstituted…
Molecular motors are involved in key transport processes inside actin-based cellular protrusions. The motors carry cargo proteins to the protrusion tip which participate in regulating the actin polymerization, and play a key role in…
The actin cortex is a thin layer of actin filaments and myosin motors beneath the outer membrane of animal cells. It determines the cells' mechanical properties and forms important morphological structures. Physical descriptions of the…
Adhesion-independent migration is a prominent mode of cell motility in confined environments, yet the physical principles that guide such movement remain incompletely understood. We present a phase-field model for simulating the motility of…
We present a continuum level analytical model of a droplet of active contractile fluid consisting of filaments and motors. We calculate the steady state flows that result from a splayed polarisation of the filaments. We account for the…
Intermediate filaments form an essential structural network, spread throughout the cytoplasm and play a key role in cell mechanics, intracellular organization and molecular signaling. The maintenance of the network and its adaptation to the…
Using a minimal model of cells or cohesive cell layers as continuum active elastic media, we examine the effect of substrate thickness and stiffness on traction forces exerted by strongly adhering cells. We obtain a simple expression for…
Cells accomplish diverse functions using the same molecular building blocks, from setting up cytoplasmic flows to generating mechanical forces. In particular, transitions between these non-equilibrium states are triggered by regulating the…
With reference to the experimental observations by T. Yanagida and his co-workers on actomyosin interaction, a Brownian motor of fluctuating ratchet kind is designed with the aim to describe the interaction between a Myosin II head and a…
Subcellular protein complexes and organelles exhibit diverse dynamic behaviors that reflect the mechanical constraints and organization of the intracellular environment. Although some structures follow classical Brownian motion, many…
The cytoskeleton is an important subsystem of cells that is involved for example in cell division and locomotion. It consists of filaments that are cross-linked by molecular motors that can induce relative sliding between filaments and…
Understanding the role of non-equilibrium driving in self-organization is crucial for developing a predictive description of biological systems, yet it is impeded by their complexity. The actin cytoskeleton serves as a paradigm for how…
Cell crawling crucially depends on the collective dynamics of the acto-myosin cytoskeleton. However, it remains an open question to what extent cell polarization and persistent motion depend on continuous regulatory mechanisms and…
Experiments suggest that the migration of some cells in the three-dimensional extra cellular matrix bears strong resemblance to one-dimensional cell migration. Motivated by this observation, we construct and study a minimal one-dimensional…
The actin cortex is an active biopolymer network underneath the plasma membrane at the periphery of mammalian cells. It is a major regulator of cell shape through the generation of active cortical tension. In addition, the cortex…
From flocks of birds to biomolecular assemblies, systems in which many individual components independently consume energy to perform mechanical work exhibit a wide array of striking behaviors. Methods to quantify the dynamics of these so…
The symmetry breaking of the actin network from radial to longitudinal symmetry has been identified as the major mechanism for keratocytes (fish cells) motility on solid substrate. For strong friction coefficient, the two dimensional actin…