Related papers: Minimal Model of Directed Cell Motility on Pattern…
The cell cortex, a thin film of active material assembled below the cell membrane, plays a key role in cellular symmetry breaking processes such as cell polarity establishment and cell division. Here, we present a minimal model of the…
In this thesis we develop minimal models of the relationship between motility, growth, and evolution of cancer cells. We utilise simple simulations of a population of individual cells in space to examine how changes in mechanical properties…
The migratory dynamics of cells in physiological processes, ranging from wound healing to cancer metastasis, rely on contact-mediated cell-cell interactions. These interactions play a key role in shaping the stochastic trajectories of…
To develop a minimal model for a cell moving in a crowded environment such as in tissue, we investigate the response of a liquid drop of active matter moving on a flat rigid substrate to forces applied at its boundaries. We consider two…
Amoeboid motion is a dynamic mode of cell motility essential for processes such as the immune response and wound healing. This review examines recent developments in the mathematical and computational modeling of amoeboid crawling, focusing…
Adherent cells have long been known to display two modes during migration: a faster mode that is persistent in direction and a slower one where they turn. Compared to the persistent mode, the turns are less studied. Here we develop a simple…
Motile biological cells in tissue often display the phenomenon of durotaxis, i.e. they tend to move towards stiffer parts of substrate tissue. The mechanism for this behavior is not completely understood. We consider simplified models for…
The crawling motion of Dictyostelium discoideum on substrata involves a number of coordinated events including cell contractions and cell protrusions. The mechanical forces exerted on the substratum during these contractions have recently…
In vitro investigation of neural architectures requires cell positioning. For that purpose, micro-magnets have been developed on silicon substrates and combined with chemical patterning to attract cells to adhesive sites and keep them there…
The cooperative action of many molecular motors is essential for dynamic processes such as cell motility and mitosis. This action can be studied by using motility assays in which the motion of cytoskeletal filaments over a surface coated…
Collective cell migration is crucial in many biological processes such as wound healing, tissue morphogenesis, and tumor progression. The leading front of a collective migrating epithelial cell layer often destabilizes into multicellular…
The motility of a cell can be triggered or inhibited not only by an applied force but also by a mechanically neutral force couple. This type of loading, represented by an applied stress and commonly interpreted as either squeezing or…
Cell migration plays a fundamental role in numerous physiological processes, including embryonic development, wound healing, and cancer metastasis. While cell-cell adhesion is known to regulate motion by shaping cell morphology and…
Cell migration is closely linked to cell shape, yet cell size is often assumed to remain constant. This assumption is challenged by recent experiments showing that cells undergo volume loss during spreading and swelling upon activation,…
Contractile forces are essential for many developmental processes involving cell shape change and tissue deformation. Recent experiments on reconstituted actomyosin networks, the major component of the contractile machinery, have shown that…
Migratory and tissue resident cells exhibit highly branched morphologies to perform their function and to adapt to the microenvironment. Immune cells, for example, display transient branched shapes while exploring the surrounding tissues.…
Cadherin adhesion receptors are fundamental determinants of tissue organization in health and disease. Increasingly, we have come to appreciate that classical cadherins exert their biological actions through active cooperation with the…
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…
Biological adhesion is a critical mechanical function of complex organisms operating at multiple scales. At the cellular scale, cell-cell adhesion is remarkably tunable to enable both cohesion and malleability during development,…
The motor part of a crawling eukaryotic cell can be represented schematically as an active continuum layer. The main active processes in this layer are protrusion, originating from non-equilibrium polymerization of actin fibers,…