Related papers: Polarisation of cells and soft objects driven by m…
Based on symmetry consideration of migration and shape deformations, we formulate phenomenologically the dynamics of cell crawling in two dimensions. Forces are introduced to change the cell shape. The shape deformations induce migration of…
During cell migration, cells become polarized, change their shape, and move in response to various internal and external cues. Cell polarization is defined through the spatio-temporal organization of molecules such as PI3K or small GTPases,…
The migration behavior of colliding cells is critically determined by transient contact-interactions. During these interactions, the motility machinery, including the front-rear polarization of the cell, dynamically responds to surface…
We show from experiments and simulations on vibration-activated granular matter that self-propelled polar rods in an elastic medium on a substrate turn and move towards each other. We account for this effective attraction through a…
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…
The macroscopic behaviour of active matter arises from nonequilibrium microscopic processes. In soft materials, active stresses typically drive macroscopic shape changes, which in turn alter the geometry constraining the microscopic…
Cell polarization plays a central role in the development of complex organisms. It has been recently shown that cell polarization may follow from the proximity to a phase separation instability in a bistable network of chemical reactions.…
Motile eukaryotic cells display distinct modes of migration that often occur within the same cell type. It remains unclear, however, whether transitions between the migratory modes require changes in external conditions, or whether the…
Anchorage-dependent cells collect information on the mechanical properties of the environment through their contractile machineries and use this information to position and orient themselves. Since the probing process is anisotropic,…
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…
Coordinated motion of cell monolayers during epithelial wound healing and tissue morphogenesis involves mechanical stress generation. Here we propose a model for the dynamics of epithelial expansion that couples mechanical deformations in…
Many fundamental biological processes are dependent on cellular migration. Although the mechanical mechanisms of single-cell migration are relatively well understood, those underlying migration of multiple cells adhered to each other in a…
We present a continuum model of the coupling between cells and substrate that accounts for some of the observed substrate-stiffness dependence of cell properties. The cell is modeled as an elastic active gel, adapting recently developed…
In this work we approach cell migration under a large-scale assumption, so that the system reduces to a particle in motion. Unlike classical particle models, the cell displacement results from its internal activity: the cell velocity is a…
Recent advances in high-resolution experimental methods have highlighted the significance of cell signal pathway crosstalk and localised signalling activity in the development and disease of numerous biological systems. The investigation of…
We use a computational phase-field model together with analytical analysis to study how inter-cellular active forces can mediate individual cell morphology and collective motion in a confluent cell monolayer. Contractile inter-cellular…
We study analytically and numerically a model metabolic cycle composed of an arbitrary number of species of catalytically active particles. Each species converts a substrate into a product, the latter being used as the substrate by the next…
The importance of molecular-scale forces in sculpting biological form and function has been acknowledged for more than a century. Accounting for forces in biology is a problem that lies at the intersection of soft condensed matter physics,…
Adhesive cell-substrate interactions are crucial for cell motility and are responsible for the necessary traction that propels cells. These interactions can also change the shape of the cell, analogous to liquid droplet wetting on adhesive…
Collective migration -- the directed, coordinated motion of many self-propelled agents -- is a fascinating emergent behavior exhibited by active matter that has key functional implications for biological systems. Extensive studies have…