Related papers: Fiber networks amplify active stress
We apply a recently developed model of cytoskeletal force generation to study a cell intrinsic contractility, as well as its response to external loading. The model is based on a non-equilibrium thermodynamic treatment of the…
Living tissues show an extraordinary adaptiveness to strain, which is crucial for their proper biological functioning. The physical origin of this mechanical behaviour has been widely investigated using reconstituted networks of collagen…
Animal cells are active, contractile objects. While bioassays address the molecular characterization of cell contractility, the mechanical characterization of the active forces in cells remains challenging. Here by confronting theoretical…
The mechanics of disordered fibrous networks such as those that make up the extracellular matrix are strongly dependent on the local connectivity or coordination number. For biopolymer networks this coordination number is typically between…
Mitochondrial networks exhibit a variety of complex behaviors, including coordinated cell-wide oscillations of energy states as well as a phase transition (depolarization) in response to oxidative stress. Since functional and structural…
In biological systems, the growth of cells, tissues, and organs is influenced by mechanical cues. Locally, cell growth leads to a mechanically heterogeneous environment as cells pull and push their neighbors in a cell network. Despite this…
We consider the propagation of tension along specific filament of a semiflexible filament network in response to the application of a point force using a combination of numerical simulations and analytic theory. We find the distribution of…
Stress in dense granular materials and other athermal particle aggregates is transmitted through a visually striking subnetwork of interparticle contacts, the filamentary segments of which are referred to as force chains. The emergence of…
Actin networks, acting as an engine pushing against an external load, are fundamentally important to cell motility. A measure of the effectiveness of an engine is the velocity the engine is able to produce at a given force, the…
Disordered elastic networks are a model material system in which it is possible to achieve tunable and trainable functions. This work investigates the modification of local mechanical properties in disordered networks inspired by allosteric…
Contractile actomyosin network flows are crucial for many cellular processes including cell division and motility, morphogenesis and transport. How local remodeling of actin architecture tunes stress production and dissipation and regulates…
Network analysis provides a powerful framework for the interpretation of genome-wide data. While static network approaches have proved fruitful, there is increasing interest in the insights gained from the analysis of cellular networks…
The biological function of protein assemblies was conventionally equated with a unique three-dimensional protein structure and protein-specific interactions. However, in the past 20 years it was found that some assemblies contain long…
Dense granular materials and other particle aggregates transmit stress in a manner that belies their microstructural disorder. A subset of the particle contact network is strikingly coherent, wherein contacts are aligned nearly linearly and…
A general approach is presented for understanding the stress response function in anisotropic granular layers in two dimensions. The formalism accommodates both classical anisotropic elasticity theory and linear theories of anisotropic…
Branched actin networks exert pushing forces in eukaryotic cells, and adapt their stiffness to their environment. The physical basis for their mechanics and adaptability is however not understood. Indeed, here we show that their high…
Fibre-reinforced hydrogels are promising materials for biomedical applications due to their strength, toughness, and tunability. However, it remains unclear how to design fibre-reinforced hydrogels for use in specific applications due to…
We present theoretical and experimental studies of the elastic response of fibrous networks subjected to uniaxial strain. Uniaxial compression or extension is applied to extracellular networks of fibrin and collagen using a shear rheometer…
A macroscopic elastic description of stresses in static, preloaded granular media is derived systematically from the microscopic elasticity of individual inter-grain contacts. The assumed preloaded state and friction at contacts ensure that…
Many organisms have an elastic skeleton that consists of a closed shell of epithelial cells that is filled with fluid, and can actively regulate both elastic forces in the shell and hydrostatic pressure inside it. In this work we introduce…