Related papers: Mechanical stability of bipolar spindle assembly
Cells often divide under mechanical confinement, where surrounding structures restrict shape changes during cytokinesis. Although forces generated during confined division have been measured experimentally, it remains unclear how…
The centrosomal aster is a mobile cellular organelle that exerts and transmits forces necessary for nuclear migration and spindle positioning. Recent experimental and theoretical studies of nematode and human cells demonstrate that pulling…
We model the effects of confinement on the stable self-organized patterns obtained in the non-equilibrium steady states of mixtures of molecular motors and microtubules. In experiments [Nedelec et al. Nature, 389, 305 (1997); Surrey et al.,…
How pattern and form are generated in a reproducible manner during embryogenesis remains poorly understood. Intestinal organoid morphogenesis involves a number of mechanochemical regulators, including cell-type specific cytoskeletal forces…
We consider mechanical stability of dimeric and monomeric proteins with the cystine knot motif. A structure based dynamical model is used to demonstrate that all dimeric and some monomeric proteins of this kind should have considerable…
Microtubules self-organize to form part of the cellular cytoskeleton. They give cells their shape and play a crucial role in cell division and intracellular transport. Strikingly, microtubules driven by motor proteins reorganize into stable…
Microtubules and motor proteins self organize into biologically important assemblies including the mitotic spindle and the centrosomal microtubule array. Outside of cells, microtubule-motor mixtures can form novel active liquid-crystalline…
We model a melt of monodisperse side-chain liquid crystalline polymers as a melt of comb copolymers in which the side groups are rod-coil diblock copolymers. We consider both excluded volume and Maier-Saupe interactions. The first acts…
The composite cytoskeleton, comprising interacting networks of semiflexible actin and rigid microtubules, actively generates forces and restructures using motor proteins such as myosins to enable key mechanical processes including cell…
Cellular migration is crucial for biological processes including embryonic development, immune response, and wound healing. The myosin-clutch model is a framework that describes how cells control migration through the interactions between…
We investigate stall force and polymerization kinetics of rigid protofilaments in a microtubule or interacting filaments in bundles under an external load force in the framework of a discrete growth model. We introduce the concecpt of…
During eukaryotic cell division, a microtubule-based structure called the spindle exerts forces on chromosomes, thereby organizing and segregating them Extensive work demonstrates that the forces acting parallel to the spindle axis,…
An aster of microtubules is a set of flexible polar filaments with dynamic plus-ends, which irradiate from a common location at which the minus ends of the filaments are found. Processive soluble oligomeric motor complexes can bind…
Microtubules and motor proteins are building blocks of self-organized subcellular biological structures such as the mitotic spindle and the centrosomal microtubule array. These same ingredients can form new "bioactive" liquid-crystalline…
During cell division, the spindle generates force to move chromosomes. In mammals, microtubule bundles called kinetochore-fibers (k-fibers) attach to and segregate chromosomes. To do so, k-fibers must be robustly anchored to the dynamic…
The bending of cilia and flagella is driven by forces generated by dynein motor proteins. These forces slide adjacent microtubule doublets within the axoneme, the motile cytoskeletal structure. To create regular, oscilla- tory beating…
Background: For faithful chromosome segregation during cell division, correct attachments must be established between sister chromosomes and microtubules from opposite spindle poles through kinetochores (chromosome bi-orientation).…
We present a systematic study of the influence of cell geometry on the orientational distribution of microtubules (MTs) nucleated from a single microtubule organizing center (MTOC). For simplicity we consider an elliptical cell geometry, a…
Microtubules (MTs) are cytoplasmic protein polymers that are essential for fundamental cellular processes including the maintenance of cell shape, organelle transport and formation of the mitotic spindle. Microtubule dynamic instability is…
In eukaryotic cells, motor proteins (MP) bind to cytoskeletal filaments and move along them in a directed manner generating active stresses. During cell division a spindle structure of overlapping antiparallel microtubules (MT) form whose…