Related papers: Physical limits on cellular directional mechanosen…
We propose and study a model of hypothetical magnetosensitive ionic channels which are long thought to be a possible candidate to explain the influence of weak magnetic fields on living organisms ranging from magnetotactic bacteria to…
Cellular elastomeric metamaterials are interesting for various applications, e.g. soft robotics, as they may exhibit multiple microstructural pattern transformations, each with its characteristic mechanical behavior. Numerical literature…
As small particles skim our airways during breathing, or our intestines during digestion, the surface epithelium is subjected to local exogenous shear that deforms hundreds to thousands of tightly interacting cells. Unlike shear…
Chemotactic cells of eukaryotic organisms are able to accurately sense shallow chemical concentration gradients using cell-surface receptors. This sensing ability is remarkable as cells must be able to spatially resolve small fractional…
The feedback between mechanical and chemical signals plays a key role in controlling many biological processes and collective cell behavior. Here we focus on the emergence of spatiotemporal density waves in a one-dimensional "cell train."…
Morphogenetic dynamics of tissue sheets require coordinated cell shape changes regulated by global patterning of mechanical forces. Inspired by such biological phenomena, we propose a minimal mechanochemical model based on the notion that…
In the cerebral cortex, neurons are subject to a continuous bombardment of synaptic inputs originating from the network's background activity. This leads to ongoing, mostly subthreshold membrane dynamics that depends on the statistics of…
When a single cell senses a chemical gradient and chemotaxes, stochastic receptor-ligand binding can be a fundamental limit to the cell's accuracy. For clusters of cells responding to gradients, however, there is a critical difference: even…
Cells are known to utilize biochemical noise to probabilistically switch between distinct gene expression states. We demonstrate that such noise-driven switching is dominated by tails of probability distributions and is therefore…
Many chemotactic bacteria inhabit environments in which chemicals appear as localized pulses and evolve by processes such as diffusion and mixing. We show that, in such environments, physical limits on the accuracy of temporal gradient…
We revisit the classical problem of diffusion-limited ion transport to a membrane (or electrode) by considering the effects of charged side walls. Using simple mathematical models and numerical simulations, we identify three basic…
Various microorganisms and some mammalian cells are able to swim in viscous fluids by performing nonreciprocal body deformations, such as rotating attached flagella or by distorting their entire body. In order to perform chemotaxis, i.e. to…
Plant organ outgrowth superficially appears like the continuous mechanical deformation of a sheet of cells. Yet, how precisely cells as individual mechanical entities can act to morph a tissue reliably and efficiently into three dimensions…
We derive the effective energy density of thin membranes of liquid crystal elastomers as the Gamma-limit of a widely used bulk model. These membranes can display fine-scale features both due to wrinkling that one expects in thin elastic…
Acoustic manipulation in microfluidic devices enables contactless handling of biological cells for Lab-on-Chip applications. This paper analyzes the controllability of multi-particle systems in a one-dimensional acoustic standing wave…
Biological membranes by virtue of their elastic properties should be capable of propagating localized perturbations analogous to sound waves. However, the existence and the possible role of such waves in communication in biology remains…
Microfluidics offer remarkable flexibility for in-flow analyte characterization and can even measure the mechanical properties of biological cells through the application of hydrodynamic forces. In this work, we present a new approach to…
While mechanobiology has demonstrated that precise control over mechanical properties at the whole-cell level is crucial for many biological functions, comparatively little attention has been paid to the intracellular mechanical properties.…
This paper presents results from the (to our knowledge) first dynamic double-directionally resolved measurement campaign at mm-wave frequencies for an outdoor microcellular scenario. The measurements are performed with USC's real-time…
Cells within living soft biological tissues seem to promote the maintenance of a mechanical state within a defined range near a so-called set-point. This mechanobiological process is often referred to as mechanical homeostasis. During this…