Related papers: Determining physical properties of the cell cortex
Contractile forces are essential for many developmental processes involving cell shape change and tissue deformation. Recent experiments on reconstituted actomyosin networks, the major component of the contractile machinery, have shown that…
During morphogenesis, the shape of a tissue emerges from collective cellular behaviors, which are in part regulated by mechanical and biochemical interactions between cells. Quantification of force and stress is therefore necessary to…
Harnessing nanoscale motor proteins to actively control material shape is a promising strategy in nanotechnology and material science. One notable system is the actomyosin network, composed of actin filaments and myosin motor proteins,…
Developing tissues need to pattern themselves in space and time. A prevalent mechanism to achieve this are pulsatile active stresses generated by the actin cytoskeleton. Active gel theory is a powerful tool to model the dynamics of…
The folding of cellular monolayers pervades embryonic development and disease. It results from stresses out of the plane of the tissue, often caused by cell shape changes including cell wedging via apical constriction. These local cellular…
Viscoelastic stress relaxation is a basic characteristic of soft matter systems such as colloids, gels, and biological networks. Although the Maxwell model of linear viscoelasticity provides a classical description of stress relaxation, the…
The formation of microparticles requires the bending of the plasma membrane away from the cytosol. The capcity of the cell membrane to form a microparticle, and the rate of membrane deformation, are controlled by multiple factors, including…
The actomyosin cortex, a thin layer of a cross-linked polymer network near the cell surface, generates active forces that are responsible for cell shape changes. Many developmental processes that involve such cell shape changes, most…
The actin cytoskeleton in living cells generates forces in conjunction with myosin motor proteins to directly and indirectly drive essential cellular processes. The semiflexible filaments of the cytoskeleton can respond nonlinearly to the…
Recent research has shown that motile cells can adapt their mode of propulsion to the mechanical properties of the environment in which they find themselves--crawling in some environments while swimming in others. The latter can involve…
Actomyosin networks are major structural components of the cell. They provide mechanical integrity and allow dynamic remodeling of eukaryotic cells, self-organizing into the diverse patterns essential for development. We provide a…
Cellular cortex, which is a highly viscous thin cytoplasmic layer just below the cell membrane, controls the cell's mechanical properties, which can be characterized by a hydrodynamic length scale $\ell$. Cells actively regulate $\ell$ via…
Understanding the rules underlying organismal development is a major unsolved problem in biology. Each cell in a developing organism responds to signals in its local environment by dividing, excreting, consuming, or reorganizing, yet how…
During the early-stages of embryo development, morphogenesis--- the emergence of shape and form in living organisms--- is almost exclusively associated with monolayers of tightly bound epithelial cells. To understand how such tissues change…
Active force generation by actin-myosin cortex coupled to the cell membrane allows the cell to deform, respond to the environment, and mediate cell motility and division. Several membrane-bound activator proteins move along it and couple to…
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…
Collective behaviors in cellular systems are regulated not only by biochemical signalling pathways but also by intercellular mechanical forces, whose quantification in contractile monolayers remains poorly understood. Here, by integrating…
It is now widely recognized that mechanical interactions between cells play a crucial role in epithelial morphogenesis, yet understanding the mechanisms through which stress and deformation affect cell behavior remains an open problem due…
Two-dimensional (2D) mechanical models of confluent tissues have related the mechanical state of a monolayer of cells to the average perimeter length of the cell cross sections, predicting floppiness or rigidity of the material. For 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,…