Related papers: Motor-free actin bundle contractility driven by mo…
The cytoskeletal component actomyosin is a canonical example of active matter since the powerstroke cycle locally converts chemical energy in the form of adenoside triphosphate (ATP) into mechanical work for remodelling. Observing myosin II…
It is well known that acoustic fields can produce forces on single particles, however they can also induce inter-particle forces due to multiple scattering events. This multi-particle force -- here referred to as acoustic binding -- is…
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…
Off-lattice active Brownian particles form clusters and undergo phase separation even in the absence of attractions or velocity-alignment mechanisms. Arguments that explain this phenomenon appeal only to the ability of particles to move…
We introduce a general physical formulation that allows one to obtain uniquely the effectiveinteractions by contracting the bare forces, even in highly concentrated systems. We tested it bystudying depletion forces in two-dimensional binary…
The cytoskeleton is an important subsystem of cells that is involved for example in cell division and locomotion. It consists of filaments that are cross-linked by molecular motors that can induce relative sliding between filaments and…
The collective behavior of active semiflexible filaments is studied with a model of tangentially driven self-propelled worm-like chains. The combination of excluded-volume interactions and self-propulsion leads to several distinct dynamic…
A statistical mechanical theory is presented to predict the effects of macromolecular crowding on protein association equilibria, accounting for both excluded volume and attractive interactions between proteins and crowding molecules.…
We investigate the effect of rotational inertia on the collective phenomena of underdamped active systems and show that the increase of the moment of inertia of each particle favors non-equilibrium phase coexistence, known as motility…
Collective actuation in active solids - the spontaneous coherent excitation of a few vibrational modes - emerges from a feedback between structural deformations and the orientation of active forces. It is an excellent candidate as a basic…
Living cells adapt and respond actively to the mechanical properties of their environment. In addition to biochemical mechanotransduction, evidence exists for a myosin-dependent, purely mechanical sensitivity to the stiffness of the…
The mechanical tension at the interface of motility-induced phase separating active Brownian particles (ABPs) remains an open question. Here, we determine the surface tension by analyzing the spatial distribution of forces at the molecular…
Cell spreading requires a major reorganisation of the actin cytoskeleton, from a cortical structure to a lamellipodium where filaments are mostly parallel to the substrate. We propose a model inspired by the physics of nematic liquid…
Crosslinked semi-flexible and flexible filaments that are actively deformed by molecular motors occur in various natural settings, such as the ordered eukaryotic flagellum, and the disordered cytoskeleton. The deformation of these composite…
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…
We scrutinize the temporally-resolved speed of active cargo transport in living cells, and show intermittent bursting motions. These nonlinear fluctuations follow a scaling law over several decades of time and space, the statistical…
Similarly-charged polyelectrolytes are known to attract each other and aggregate into bundles when the charge density of the polymers exceeds a critical value that depends on the valency of the counterions. The dynamics of aggregation of…
Effect of molecular crowding and confinement experienced by protein in the cell during unfolding has been studied by modeling a linear polymer chain on a percolation cluster. It is known that internal structure of the cell changes in time,…
Eukaryotic cells possess motility mechanisms allowing them not only to self-propel but also to exert forces on obstacles (to push) and to carry cargoes (to pull). To study the inherent asymmetry between active pushing and pulling we model a…
The composite cytoskeleton, comprising interacting networks of semiflexible actin and rigid microtubules, actively generates forces and restructures using motor proteins such as myosins to enable key mechanical processes including cell…