Related papers: Force-driven growth of intercellular junctions
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…
Cells are dynamic systems characterized by temporal variations in biophysical properties such as stiffness and contractility. Recent studies show that the recruitment and release of actin filaments into and out of the cell cortex - a…
Motivated by rolling adhesion of white blood cells in the vasculature, we study how cells move in linear shear flow above a wall to which they can adhere via specific receptor-ligand bonds. Our computer simulations are based on a Langevin…
Mechanical loading generally weakens adhesive structures and eventually leads to their rupture. However, biological systems can adapt to loads by strengthening adhesions, which is essential for maintaining the integrity of tissue and whole…
Cell-cell adhesion is widely hypothesised to maintain cohesion within the long streams of follower cells that trail leader subpopulations during collective migration, including in neural crest cell migration, angiogenesis, and cancer cell…
Cells exhibit qualitatively different behaviors on substrates with different rigidities. The fact that cells are more polarized on the stiffer substrate motivates us to construct a two-dimensional cell with the distribution of focal…
Intracellular bidirectional transport of cargo on microtubule filaments is achieved by the collective action of oppositely directed dynein and kinesin motors. Experiments have found that in certain cases, inhibiting the activity of one type…
Observations of single epidermal cells on flat adhesive substrates have revealed two distinct morphological and functional states, namely a non-migrating symmetric unpolarized state and a migrating asymmetric polarized state. These states…
Experiments suggest that the migration of some cells in the three-dimensional extra cellular matrix bears strong resemblance to one-dimensional cell migration. Motivated by this observation, we construct and study a minimal one-dimensional…
We investigate clustering of malignant glioma cells. \emph{In vitro} experiments in collagen gels identified a cell line that formed clusters in a region of low cell density, whereas a very similar cell line (which lacks an important…
While most chemical bonds weaken under the action of mechanical force (called slip bond behavior), nature has developed bonds that do the opposite: their lifetime increases as force is applied. While such catch bonds have been studied quite…
Biopolymer Networks play an important role in coordinating and regulating collective cellular dynamics via a number of signaling pathways. Here, we investigate the mechanical response of a model biopolymer network due to the active…
A living cell actively generates traction forces on its environment with its actin cytoskeleton. These forces deform the cell elastic substrate which, in turn, affects the traction forces exerted by the cell and can consequently modify the…
We study colonies of non-motile, rod-shaped bacteria growing on solid substrates. In our model, bacteria interact purely mechanically, by pushing each other away as they grow, and consume a diffusing nutrient. We show that mechanical…
Advances in synthetic biology allow us to engineer bacterial collectives with pre-specified characteristics. However, the behavior of these collectives is difficult to understand, as cellular growth and division as well as extra-cellular…
The optimal shapes attained by contractile cells on adhesive substrates are determined by the interplay between intracellular forces and adhesion with the extracellular matrix. We model the cell as a contractile film bounded by an elastic…
The adhesive and frictional response of an AFM tip connected to a substrate through supramolecular host-guest complexes is investigated by dynamic Monte Carlo simulations. The variation of the pull-off force with the unloading rate recently…
The mechanisms driving the collective movement of cells remain poorly understood. To contribute toward resolving this mystery, a model was formulated to theoretically explore the possible functions of polarized cell-cell adhesion in…
Suspensions of swimming micro-organisms provide examples of coordinated active dynamics. That has stimulated the study of a phenomenological theory combining synchronization and polar order in active matter. Here, we consider another…
During migration cells exhibit a rich variety of seemingly random migration patterns, which makes unraveling the underlying mechanisms that control cell migration a daunting challenge. For efficient migration cells require a mechanism for…