Related papers: Measuring cellular traction forces on non-planar s…
Cells and tissues are constantly exposed to various chemical and physical signals that intricately regulate various physiological and pathological processes. This study explores the integration of two biophysical methods, Traction Force…
Biological cells in soft materials can be modeled as anisotropic force contraction dipoles. The corresponding elastic interaction potentials are long-ranged ($\sim 1/r^3$ with distance $r$) and depend sensitively on elastic constants,…
Cells can sense forces applied to them, but also the stiffness of their environment. These are two different phenomena, and here we investigate the mechanosensitivity of the IInd kind: how the cell can measure an elastic modulus at a single…
Active solids are a large class of materials, including both living soft tissues and artificial matter, that share the ability to undergo strain even in absence of external loads. While in engineered materials the actuation is typically…
We study interactions between biological cells that apply anisotropic active mechanical forces on an elastic substrate. We model the cells as thin discs that along their perimeters apply radial, but angle-dependent forces on the substrate.…
The constant interplay and information exchange between cells and their micro-environment are essential to their survival and ability to execute biological functions. To date, a few leading technologies such as traction force microscopy,…
Dynamic force spectroscopy (DFS) is an experimental technique that is commonly used to assess information of the strength, energy landscape, and lifetime of noncovalent bio-molecular interactions. DFS traditionally requires an applied force…
Biological cells embedded in fibrous matrices have been observed to form inter-cellular bands of dense and aligned fibers, through which they mechanically interact over long distances. Such matrix-mediated cellular interactions have been…
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 ability of cells to sense and respond to the mechanical properties of their environments is fundamental to a range of cellular behaviours, with substrate stiffness increasingly being found to be a key signalling factor. Although active…
Developing new methods for predicting electromagnetic instabilities in cardiac activity is of primary importance. However, we still need a comprehensive view of the heart's magnetic activity at the tissue scale. To fill this gap, we present…
We describe experiments that probe the response to a point force of 2D granular systems under a variety of conditions. Using photoelastic particles to determine forces at the grain scale, we experimentally show that disorder, packing…
We combine traction force data with Bayesian inversion to obtain an absolute estimate of the internal stress field of a cell monolayer. The method, Bayesian inversion stress microscopy (BISM), is validated using numerical simulations…
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…
Purpose: The mechanics of the mitral valve leaflet as a nonlinear, inelastic and anisotropic soft tissue results from an integrated response of many mathematical/physical indexes' that illustrate the tissue. In the past decade, finite…
Cell walls define a cell shape in bacteria. They are rigid to resist large internal pressures, but remarkably plastic to adapt to a wide range of external forces and geometric constraints. Currently, it is unknown how bacteria maintain…
Continuum strain energy functions are developed for soft biological tissues that possess long fibrillar components. The treatment is based on the model of an elastica, which is our fine scale model, and is homogenized in a simple fashion to…
Ferrogels and magnetoelastomers are composite materials obtained by embedding magnetic particles of mesoscopic size in a crosslinked polymeric matrix. They combine the reversible elastic deformability of polymeric materials with the high…
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…
To understand cell migration, it is crucial to gain knowledge on how cells exert and integrate forces on/from their environment. A quantity of prime interest for biophysicists interested in cell movements modeling is the intracellular…