Related papers: Nonlinear Rheology in a Model Biological Tissue
The formation of self-organized patterns is key to the morphogenesis of multicellular organisms, although a comprehensive theory of biological pattern formation is still lacking. Here, we propose a minimal model combining tissue mechanics…
Rheological properties, especially 'shear-thinning', of dense colloidal dispersions are discussed on three different levels. A generalized phenomonological Maxwell model gives a broad framework connecting glassy dynamics to the linear and…
Disordered solids often change their elastic response as they slowly age. Using experiments and simulations, we study how aging disordered planar networks under an applied stress affects their nonlinear elastic response. We are able to…
Tissue homeostasis, the biological process of maintaining a steady state in tissue via control of cell proliferation, death, and metabolic function, is essential for the development, growth, maintenance, and proper function of living…
Mechanical forces such as fluid shear have been shown to enhance cell growth and differentiation, but knowledge of their mechanistic effect on cells is limited because the local flow patterns and associated metrics are not precisely known.…
Recent experiments in various cell types have shown that two-dimensional tissues often display local nematic order, with evidence of extensile stresses manifest in the dynamics of topological defects. Using a mesoscopic model where tissue…
An adequate control of cell response in tissue engineering applications is of utmost importance to obtain products suitable to clinical practice. This paper is the first part of a series of two connected publications in which we study via…
This paper presents the work devoted to the study of the operation of a miniaturized membrane Stirling engine. Indeed, such an engine relies on the dynamic coupling of the motion of two membranes to achieve a prime mover Stirling…
Animal cells in tissues are supported by biopolymer matrices, which typically exhibit highly nonlinear mechanical properties. While the linear elasticity of the matrix can significantly impact cell mechanics and functionality, it remains…
We present a framework to take new measurements in nematic systems that contain active elements such as molecular motors. Spatio-temporal fields of stress, traction, velocity, pressure, and forces are estimated jointly from microscopy…
We study the shearing rheology of dense suspensions of elastic capsules, taking aggregation-free red blood cells as a physiologically relevant example. Particles are non-Brownian and interact only via hydrodynamics and short-range repulsive…
Complex elastic media such as biological membranes, in particular, blood vessels, may be described as fiber-reinforced solids in the framework of nonlinear hyperelasticity. Finite axially symmetric anti-plane shear displacements in such…
In this research study, a numerical tool, which is based on a version of Slender Body theory, has been used and also modified to simulate the mechanical behaviour of single- and double-cross-linked biopolymer networks (hydrogel) under…
The vertex model is widely used to describe the dynamics of epithelial tissues, because of its simplicity and versatility and the direct inclusion of biophysical parameters. Here, it is shown that quite generally, when cells modify their…
The shape of a cell influences and it is influenced by interactions with its neighbouring partners. Here, we introduce a coarse-grained model of non-reciprocal interactions between single-cell organisms to study emergent morphologies during…
Living systems are chiral on multiple scales, from constituent biopolymers to large scale morphology, and their active mechanics is both driven by chiral components and serves to generate chiral morphologies. We describe the mechanics of…
The ubiquitous appearance of regions of localized deformation (shear bands) in different kinds of disordered materials under shear is studied in the context of a mesoscopic model of plasticity. The model may or may not include relaxational…
The mechanical behaviour and symmetry-breaking shape deformation of red blood cells subjected to shear flows is used to demonstrate that far from being random fluids, both the membrane and cytoplasm of every biological cell undergo…
The structure and degree of order in soft matter and other materials is intimately connected to the nature of the interactions between the particles. One important research goal is to find suitable control mechanisms, to enhance or suppress…
We here present two simplified models aimed at describing the long-term, irregular behaviours observed in the rheological response of certain complex fluids, such as periodic oscillations or chaotic-like variations. Both models exploit the…