Related papers: Physical limits on cellular directional mechanosen…
Mechanosensitive (MS) channels are ion channels which act as cells' safety valves, opening when the osmotic pressure becomes too high and making cells avoid damage by releasing ions. They are found on the cellular membrane of a large number…
Interaction of electric fields with biological cells is indispensable for many physiological processes. Thermal electrical noise in the cellular environment has long been considered as the minimum threshold for detection of electrical…
Local stresses in a tissue, a collective property, regulate cell division and apoptosis. In turn, cell growth and division induce active stresses in the tissue. As a consequence, there is a feedback between cell growth and local stresses.…
In development and homeostasis, multi-cellular systems exhibit spatial and temporal heterogeneity in their biochemical and mechanical properties. Nevertheless, it remains unclear how spatiotemporally heterogeneous forces affect the…
Molecular-motor generated active stresses drive the cytoskeleton away from equilibrium, endowing it with tunable mechanical properties that are essential for diverse functions such as cell division and motility[1-5]. Designing analogous…
We investigate single-cell directional sensing from diffusing chemoattractant signals released by a localized source. We focus on the low-concentration regime in which receptor activity is discrete and cellular decisions are made on…
Single-cell gene expression measurements encode variability spanning molecular noise, cell-to-cell heterogeneity, and technical artifacts. Mechanistic stochastic models provide powerful approaches to disentangle these sources, yet inferring…
Many types of cells can sense external ligand concentrations with cell-surface receptors at extremely high accuracy. Interestingly, ligand-bound receptors are often internalized, a process also known as receptor-mediated endocytosis. While…
The appealing feature of molecular electronics is the possibility of exploiting functionality built within a single molecule. This functionality can be employed, for example, for sensing or switching purposes. Thus, ideally, the associated…
Control of cell proliferation is a fundamental aspect of tissue physiology central to morphogenesis, wound healing and cancer. Although many of the molecular genetic factors are now known, the system level regulation of growth is still…
We propose a non-local model for contact guidance and steric hindrance depending on a single external cue, namely the extracellular matrix, that affects in a twofold way the polarization and speed of motion of the cells. We start from a…
The adhesion of biological membranes is controlled by various types of receptor and ligand molecules. In this letter, we present a statistical-mechanical model for membranes that interact via receptor/ligand bonds of two different lengths.…
Investigations over half a century have indicated that mechanical forces induce neurite growth - with neurites elongating at a rate of 0.1-0.3{\mu}mh^{-1} per pico-Newton (pN) of applied force - when mechanical tension exceeds a threshold,…
The origin of nonlinear responses in cells has been suggested to be crucial for various cell functions including the propagation of the nervous impulse. In physics nonlinear behavior often originates from phase transitions. Evidence for…
We propose a simple mathematical model to describe the mechanical relaxation of cells within a curved epithelial tissue layer represented by an arbitrary curve in two-dimensional space. This model generalises previous one-dimensional models…
The effects of cell size and deformability on the lateral migration and deformation of living cells flowing through a rectangular microchannel has been numerically investigated and compared with the inertial-microfluidics data on detection…
Mechanical forces such as fluid shear have been shown to enhance cell growth and differentiation, but knowledge of their mechanistic effect on cells is limited because the local flow patterns and associated metrics are not precisely known.…
The mechanosensitivity of cells, which determines how they are able to respond to mechanical signals received from their environment, is crucial for the functioning of all biological systems. In experiments, cells placed on cyclically…
We present a new kinetic equation for cell migration driven by mechanical interactions with the substrate, an effect not previously captured in kinetic models, and essential for explaining observed collective behaviors such as those in…
Mucus is a biological gel covering the surface of several tissues and insuring key biological functions, including as a protective barrier against dehydration, pathogens penetration, or gastric acids. Mucus biological functioning requires a…