Related papers: Embryo as an active granular fluid: stress-coordin…
Large-scale force generation is essential for biological functions such as cell motility, embryonic development, and muscle contraction. In these processes, forces generated at the molecular level by motor proteins are transmitted by…
Soft condensed matter structures often challenge us with complex many-body phenomena governed by collective modes spanning wide spatial and temporal domains. In order to successfully tackle such problems mesoscopic coarse-grained (CG)…
Many morphogenetic processes involve mechanical rearrangement of epithelial tissues that is driven by precisely regulated cytoskeletal forces and cell adhesion. The mechanical state of the cell and intercellular adhesion are not only the…
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…
In this paper we report, clarify and broaden various recent efforts to complement the chemistry-centered models of force generation in muscles by mechanics-centered models. The physical mechanisms of interest can be grouped into two…
We investigate the spatial correlations of microscopic stresses in soft particulate gels, using 2D and 3D numerical simulations. We use a recently developed theoretical framework predicting the analytical form of stress-stress correlations…
Modeling membrane interactions with arbitrarily shaped colloidal particles, such as environmental micro- and nanoplastics, at the cell scale remains particularly challenging, owing to the complexity of particle geometries and the need to…
Coarse-Graining (CG) models are low resolution approximation of high resolution models, such as all-atomic (AA) models. An effective CG model is expected to reproduce equilibrium values of sufficient physical quantities of its AA model,…
Phagocytosis is the fundamental cellular process by which eukaryotic cells bind and engulf particles by their cell membrane. Particle engulfment involves particle recognition by cell-surface receptors, signaling and remodeling of the actin…
Incorporating atomistic and molecular information into models of cellular behaviour is challenging because of a vast separation of spatial and temporal scales between processes happening at the atomic and cellular levels. Multiscale or…
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…
We numerically investigate the role of mechanical stress in modifying the conductivity properties of the cardiac tissue and its impact in computational models for cardiac electromechanics. We follow a theoretical framework recently proposed…
In this work, we explore the dynamics of active entangled chains using molecular dynamics simulations of a modified Kremer-Grest model. The active chains are diluted in a mesh of very long passive linear chains, to avoid constraint release…
We present a microscopic model of a disordered viscoelastic active solid, i.e. an active material whose long time behaviour is elastic as opposed to viscous. It is composed of filaments, passive crosslinks and molecular motors powered by…
The bulk dynamics of dense granular materials arise through a combination of particle-scale and mesoscale effects. Theoretical and numerical studies have shown that collective effects are created by particle-scale anisotropic structures…
Both animal and plant tissue exhibit a nonlinear rheological phenomenon known as compression stiffening, or an increase in moduli with increasing uniaxial compressive strain. Does such a phenomenon exist in single cells, which are the…
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…
The evolution of effective force chains percolating through a compressed granular system is investigated. We performed experiments by compressing an ensemble of spherical particles in a cylindrical container monitoring the macroscopic…
Active stresses in biological cells and tissues drive many developmental processes. However, increasing experimental evidence suggests that additional mechanical interactions with surrounding material can play a crucial role in guiding…
Mucus is a biological gel covering the surface of several tissues and insuring key biological functions, including as a protective barrier against dehydration, pathogens penetration, or gastric acids. Mucus biological functioning requires a…