Related papers: Maximum velocity of self-propulsion for an active …
Molecular motors play pivotal roles in organizing the interior of cells. A motor efficient in cargo transport would move along cytoskeletal filaments with a high speed and a minimal error in transport distance (or time) while consuming a…
We present a simple and generic theoretical description of actin-based motility, where polymerization of filaments maintains propulsion. The dynamics is driven by polymerization kinetics at the filaments' free ends, crosslinking of the…
The efficiency of intracellular cargo transport from specific source to target locations is strongly dependent upon molecular motor-assisted motion along the cytoskeleton. Radial transport along microtubules and lateral transport along the…
Contractility in animal cells is often generated by molecular motors such as myosin, which require polar substrates for their function. Motivated by recent experimental evidence of motor-independent contractility, we propose a robust…
Amoeboid cell motility is relevant in a wide variety of biomedical applications such as wound healing, cancer metastasis, and embryonic morphogenesis. It is characterized by pronounced changes of the cell shape associated with expansions…
Mechanical cues from the extracellular microenvironment play a central role in regulating the structure, function and fate of living cells. Nevertheless, the precise nature of the mechanisms and processes underlying this crucial cellular…
The interaction of the actin cytoskeleton with cell-substrate adhesions is necessary for cell migration. While the trajectories of motile cells have a stochastic character, investigations of cell motility mechanisms rarely elaborate on the…
We consider active Brownian particles that intermittently switch between active and inactive states. Such behavior is ubiquitous at all scales, from bacteria to animals and in artificial active systems. We derive exact expressions for key…
Living systems often exhibit internal driving: active, molecular processes drive nonequilibrium phenomena such as metabolism or migration. Active gels constitute a fascinating class of internally driven matter, where molecular motors exert…
Multicopters are becoming increasingly important in both civil and military fields. Currently, most multicopter propulsion systems are designed by experience and trial-and-error experiments, which are costly and ineffective. This paper…
Cells control fluid flows with a spatial and temporal precision that far exceeds the capabilities of current microfluidic technologies. Cells achieve this superior spatio-temporal control by harnessing dynamic networks of cytoskeleton and…
The present article is an invited contribution to the Encyclopedia of Complexity and System Science, Robert A. Meyers Ed., Springer New York (2009). It is a review of the biophysical mechanisms that underly cell motility. It mainly focuses…
Substrate-based cell motility is essential for fundamental biological processes, such as tissue growth, wound healing and immune response. Even if a comprehensive understanding of this motility mode remains elusive, progress has been…
The origin of biological motion can be traced back to the function of molecular motor proteins. Cytoplasmic dynein and kinesin transport organelles within our cells moving along a polymeric filament, the microtubule. The motion of the…
Cells often migrate on curved surfaces inside the body, such as curved tissues, blood vessels or highly curved protrusions of other cells. Recent \textit{in-vitro} experiments provide clear evidence that motile cells are affected by the…
Cell shape changes are largely controlled by the actin cytoskeleton, a dynamic filament network beneath the plasma membrane. Several cell types can form extended free-standing protrusions not supported by an extracellular substrate or…
Adhering cells actively probe the mechanical properties of their environment and use the resulting information to position and orient themselves. We show that a large body of experimental observations can be consistently explained from one…
Cell motility underlies many biological processes, including cancer metastasis, bacterial infection, and evolutionary adaptation. We introduce a non-equilibrium single-cell motility model inspired by the generalized Langevin equation, which…
During migration cells exhibit a rich variety of seemingly random migration patterns, which makes unraveling the underlying mechanisms that control cell migration a daunting challenge. For efficient migration cells require a mechanism for…
Active materials form a class of far-from-equilibrium systems that are driven internally and exhibit self-organization which can be harnessed to perform mechanical work. Inspired by experiments on synthetic active networks we examine limits…