Related papers: Active patterning and asymmetric transport in a mo…
Non-processive molecular motors have to work together in ensembles in order to generate appreciable levels of force or movement. In skeletal muscle, for example, hundreds of myosin II molecules cooperate in thick filaments. In non-muscle…
Cytoskeletal crowding plays a key role in the diffusion of DNA molecules through the cell, acting as a barrier to effective intracellular transport and conformational stability required for such processes as transfection, viral infection,…
Many cytoskeletal systems are now sufficiently well known to permit their precise quantitative modelling. Microtubule and actin filaments are well characterized, and the associated proteins are often known, as well as their abundance and…
We present a microscopic model of a disordered viscoelastic active solid, i.e. an active material whose long time behaviour is elastic as opposed to viscous. It is composed of filaments, passive crosslinks and molecular motors powered by…
Active materials take advantage of their internal sources of energy to self-organize in an automated manner. This feature provides a novel opportunity to design micron-scale machines with minimal required control. However, self-organization…
Active matter systems evade the constraints of thermal equilibrium, leading to the emergence of intriguing collective behavior. A paradigmatic example is given by motor-filament mixtures, where the motion of motor proteins drives alignment…
We derive a model describing spatio-temporal organization of an array of microtubules interacting via molecular motors. Starting from a stochastic model of inelastic polar rods with a generic anisotropic interaction kernel we obtain a set…
We introduce a stochastic lattice gas model including two particle species and two parallel lanes. One lane with exclusion interaction and directed motion and the other lane without exclusion and unbiased diffusion, mimicking a micotubule…
In general, the behavior of large and complex aggregates of elementary components can not be understood nor extrapolated from the properties of a few components. The brain is a good example of this type of networked systems where some…
Immune cells recognize and discriminate antigens through immunological synapses - dynamic intercellular junctions exhibiting highly organized receptor-ligand patterns. While much work has focused on molecular kinetics and passive mechanisms…
The mechanical properties of actin filaments are essential to their biological functions. Here, we introduce a highly coarse-grained model of actin filaments that preserves helicity and chirality while enabling mesoscale simulations. The…
Inspired by recent experimental observation of patterning at the membrane of a living cell, we propose a generic model for the dynamics of a fluctuating interface driven by particle-like inclusions which stimulate its growth. We find that…
Self-assembly and force generation are two central processes in biological systems that usually are considered in separation. However, the signals that activate non-muscle myosin II molecular motors simultaneously lead to self-assembly into…
It is well known that many biochemical processes in the cell such as gene regulation, growth signals and activation of ion channels, rely on mechanical stimuli. However, the mechanism by which mechanical signals propagate through cells is…
The actin cytoskeleton of cells is in continuous motion due to both polymerization of new filaments and their contraction by myosin II molecular motors. Through adhesion to the substrate, such intracellular flow can be converted into cell…
Active filaments, such as microtubules with attached cargo-carrying motor proteins, are important dynamic structures for fluid transport in and around living cells. The mathematical models of active filaments appearing in the literature…
Coordination of cytoplasmic flows on large scales in space and time are at the root of many cellular processes, including growth, migration or division. These flows are driven by organized contractions of the actomyosin cortex. In order to…
How cells with diverse morphologies and cytoskeletal architectures modulate their mechanical behaviors to drive robust collective motion within tissues is poorly understood. During wound repair within epithelial monolayers in vitro, cells…
Networks of filamentous proteins play a crucial role in cell mechanics. These cytoskeletal networks, together with various crosslinking and other associated proteins largely determine the (visco)elastic response of cells. In this letter we…
Active filaments driven by tangential forces can become trapped in a spinning state when attached to a heavy head, where activity and inertia drive persistent rotation rather than directed transport. Using three-dimensional Langevin…