Related papers: Mechanical properties of branched actin filaments
We simulate the nonlocal Stokesian hydrodynamics of an elastic filament which is active due a permanent distribution of stresslets along its contour. A bending instability of an initially straight filament spontaneously breaks flow symmetry…
The mechanics of animal cells is strongly determined by stress fibers, which are contractile filament bundles that form dynamically in response to extracellular cues. Stress fibers allow the cell to adapt its mechanics to environmental…
Vascular and non-vascular cells often form an interconnected network in vitro, similar to the early vascular bed of warm blooded embryos. Our time-lapse recordings show that the network forms by extending sprouts, i.e., multicellular linear…
Mesh-like structures, such as mucus gel or cytoskeleton networks, are ubiquitous in biological systems. These intricate structures are composed of cross-linked, semi-flexible bio-filaments, crucial to numerous biological processes. In many…
Networks of elastic fibers are ubiquitous in biological systems and often provide mechanical stability to cells and tissues. Fiber reinforced materials are also common in technology. An important characteristic of such materials is their…
Athermal models of disordered fibrous networks are highly useful for studying the mechanics of elastic networks composed of stiff biopolymers. The underlying network architecture is a key aspect that can affect the elastic properties of…
We develop an agent-based model of vasculogenesis, the de novo formation of blood vessels. Endothelial cells in the vessel network are viewed as linearly elastic spheres and are of two types: vessel elements are contained within the…
Animal cells form contractile structures to promote various functions, from cell motility to cell division. Force generation in these structures is often due to molecular motors such as myosin that require polar substrates for their…
Polymerization of actin proteins into dynamic structures is essential to eukaryotic cell life. This has motivated a large body of in vitro experiments measuring polymerization kinetics of individual filaments. Here we model these kinetics,…
Active polymers possess numerous unique properties that are quite different from those observed in the system of small active molecule due to the intricate interplay between their activity and topological constraints. This study focuses on…
Flexible superparamagnetic filaments are studied under the influence of fast precessing magnetic fields using simulations and a continuum approximation analysis. We find that individual filaments can be made to exert controllable tensile…
We probed the bending of actin subject to external forcing and viscous drag. Single actin filaments were moved perpendicular to their long axis in an oscillatory way by means of an optically tweezed latex bead attached to one end of the…
Cross-linked polymer networks with orientational order constitute a wide class of soft materials and are relevant to biological systems (e.g., F-actin bundles). We analytically study the nonlinear force-extension relation of an array of…
Cytoskeletal networks, which are essentially motor-filament assemblies, play a major role in many developmental processes involving structural remodeling and shape changes. These are achieved by nonequilibrium self-organization processes…
Man-made slender structures are known to be sensitive to high levels of vibration, due to their flexibility, which often cause irreversible damage. In nature, trees repeatedly endure large amplitudes of motion, mostly caused by strong…
Quantifying the influence of microscopic details on the dynamics of development of the overall structure of a filamentous network is important in a number of biologically relevant contexts, but it is not obvious what order parameters can be…
The actin cytoskeleton is an active semi-flexible polymer network whose non-equilibrium properties coordinate both stable and contractile behaviors to maintain or change cell shape. While myosin motors drive the actin cytoskeleton…
Stretching an elastic material along one axis typically induces contraction along the transverse axes, a phenomenon known as the Poisson effect. From these strains, one can compute the specific volume, which generally either increases or,…
The dynamics of a plasmoid chain is studied with three dimensional Particle-in-Cell simulations. The evolution of the system with and without a uniform guide field, whose strength is 1/3 the asymptotic magnetic field, is investigated. The…
Epithelial cell layers on soft elastic substrates or pillar arrays are commonly used as model systems for investigating the role of force in tissue growth, maintenance and repair. Here we show analytically that the experimentally observed…