Related papers: Heterogeneous Force Chains in Cellularized Biopoly…
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…
We give a description of cell diffusion in a soft tissue, paying special attention to the coupling of force, matter, and microforce balance laws through a suitable dissipation principle. To this end, we cast our framework into a multi-level…
We generated a computational approach to analyze the biomechanics of epithelial cell aggregates, either island or stripes or entire monolayers, that combines both vertex and contact-inhibition-of-locomotion models to include both cell-cell…
Reconstituted filamentous actin networks with myosin motor proteins form active gels, in which motor proteins generate forces that drive the network far from equilibrium. This motor activity can also strongly affect the network elasticity;…
Cellular phenotypes are determined by the dynamical activity of networks of co-regulated genes. Elucidating such networks is crucial for the understanding of normal cell physiology as well as for the dissection of complex pathologic…
We propose a new model for heterogeneous cellular networks that incorporates dependencies between the layers. In particular, it places lower-tier base stations at locations that are poorly covered by the macrocells, and it includes a…
We construct a micromechanical version of an early model for topologically constrained polymers -- a 2D chain amongst point-like uncrossable obstacles -- which allows us to explicitly elucidate the role of topological forces beyond…
Aiming at the mechanical properties of cross-linked biopolymers, we set up and analyze a model of two weakly bending wormlike chains subjected to a tensile force, with regularly spaced inter-chain bonds (cross-links) represented by harmonic…
Recent advances in high-resolution experimental methods have highlighted the significance of cell signal pathway crosstalk and localised signalling activity in the development and disease of numerous biological systems. The investigation of…
This paper (parts I and II) provides an expository introduction to monotone and near-monotone dynamical systems associated to biochemical networks, those whose graphs are consistent or near-consistent. Many conclusions can be drawn from…
Living cells are characterized by the micrometric confinement of various macromolecules at high concentrations. Using droplets containing binary polymer blends as artificial cells, we previously showed that cell-sized confinement causes…
Network equilibrium models represent a versatile tool for the analysis of interconnected objects and their relationships. They have been widely employed in both science and engineering to study the behavior of complex systems under various…
Increasing evidence suggests that chromosome folding and genetic expression are intimately connected. For example, the co-expression of a large number of genes can benefit from their spatial co-localization in the cellular space.…
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…
We study the dynamics of gene activities in relatively small size biological networks (up to a few tens of nodes), e.g. the activities of cell-cycle proteins during the mitotic cell-cycle progression. Using the framework of deterministic…
Motivated by single molecule experiments on biopolymers we explore equilibrium morphologies and force-extension behavior of copolymers with hydrophobic segments using Langevin dynamics simulations. We find that the interplay between…
The structure and dynamics of a typical biological system are complex due to strong and inhomogeneous interactions between its constituents. The investigation of such systems with classical mathematical tools, such as differential equations…
Connecting cell behavior to tissue shape and mechanics is a key challenge in the physics of morphogenesis. Cytoskeletal turnover precludes a fixed reference state, and tensions are actively generated independently of strain; so conventional…
We have used kinetic Monte Carlo simulations to study the kinetics of unfolding of cross-linked polymer chains under mechanical loading. As the ends of a chain are pulled apart, the force transmitted by each crosslink increases until it…
Entangled networks are ubiquitous in tissues, polymers, and fabrics. However, their mechanics remain insufficiently understood due to the complexity of the topological constraints at the network level. Here, we develop a mathematical…