Related papers: Cell division: a source of active stress in cellul…
The hydrodynamic theory of active nematics has been often used to describe the spatio-temporal dynamics of cell flows and motile topological defects within soft confluent tissues. Those theories, however, often rely on the assumption that…
The spontaneous generation of electrical activity underpins a number of essential physiological processes, and is observed even in tissues where specialized pacemaker cells have not been identified. The emergence of periodic oscillations in…
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…
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…
Active forces occurring within cells can drive crucial biological processes that involve spontaneous organization and shape change, such as cell division. Motivated by recent in vitro experiments of nematic droplets of cytoskeletal…
Cell motility is one of the most fundamental phenomena underlying biological processes that maintain living organisms alive. Here we introduce a simple model to describe the motility of cells which include not only time-correlated internal…
We analyse a generic motility model, with the motility mechanism arising by contractile stress due to the interaction of myosin and actin. A hydrodynamic active polar gel theory is used to model the cytoplasm of a cell and is combined with…
Topological defects are at the root of the large-scale organization of liquid crystals. In two-dimensional active nematics, two classes of topological defects of charges $\pm 1/2$ are known to play a major role due to active stresses.…
Cells in tissues can organize into a broad spectrum of structures according to their function. Drastic changes of organization, such as epithelial-mesenchymal transitions or the formation of spheroidal aggregates, are often associated…
Living cells move thanks to assemblies of actin filaments and myosin motors that range from very organized striated muscle tissue to disordered intracellular bundles. The mechanisms powering these disordered structures are debated, and all…
A novel theory for cell differentiation is proposed, based on simulations with interacting artificial cells which have metabolic networks within, and divide into two when the final product is accumulated. Results of simulations with coupled…
The cell cortex, a thin film of active material assembled below the cell membrane, plays a key role in cellular symmetry breaking processes such as cell polarity establishment and cell division. Here, we present a minimal model of the…
Replication through cell division is one of the most fundamental processes of life and a major driver of dynamics in systems ranging from bacterial colonies to embryogenesis, tissues and tumors. While regulation often plays a role in…
Migratory and tissue resident cells exhibit highly branched morphologies to perform their function and to adapt to the microenvironment. Immune cells, for example, display transient branched shapes while exploring the surrounding tissues.…
Actin filaments, crosslinkers and myosin molecular motors form contractile networks. For instance, the cell cortex is a thin network below the cell membrane ; contraction of the cell cortex allows cells to round up during cell division.…
We aim to understand the formation of abnormal waves of activity from myocardial regions with diminished cell-to-cell coupling. In route to this goal, we studied the behavior of a heterogeneous myocyte network in which a sharp coupling…
We study the dynamics of a thick polar epithelium subjected to the action of both an electric and a flow field in a planar geometry. We develop a generalized continuum hydrodynamic description and describe the tissue as a two component…
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 consider a cellular monolayer, described using a vertex-based model, for which cells form a spatially disordered array of convex polygons that tile the plane. Equilibrium cell configurations are assumed to minimize a global energy…
We study a mixture of extensile and contractile cells using a vertex model extended to include active nematic stresses. The two cell populations phase separate over time. While phase separation strengthens monotonically with an increasing…