Related papers: Force-driven growth of intercellular junctions
We investigate morphologies of proliferating cellular tissues using a newly developed numerical simulation model for mechanical cell division and migration in 2D. The model is applied to a bimodal mixture consisting of stiff cells with a…
During the morphogenesis of tissues and tumors, cells often interact with neighbors with different mechanical properties, but the understanding of its role is lacking. We use active Brownian Dynamics simulations to study a model co-culture…
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…
Cells attach to their environment by means of focal adhesions, which are molecular complexes that exhibit the remarkable ability to adapt to mechanical load by changing their size. Drawing from the biomolecular mechanisms underlying this…
Adhesion between a T cell and an antigen presenting cell is achieved by TCR-pMHC and LFA1-ICAM1 protein complexes. These segregate to form a special pattern, known as the immunological synapse (IS), consisting of a central quasi-circular…
Cellular patterns formed by self-organization of dislocations are a most conspicuous feature of dislocation microstructure evolution during plastic deformation. To elucidate the physical mechanisms underlying dislocation cell structure…
Experimental studies of cell motility in culture have shown that under adequate conditions these living organisms possess the ability to organize themselves into complex structures. Such structures may exhibit a synergy that greatly…
Based on symmetry consideration of migration and shape deformations, we formulate phenomenologically the dynamics of cell crawling in two dimensions. Forces are introduced to change the cell shape. The shape deformations induce migration of…
Cell growth, division and death are defining features of biological tissues that contribute to morphogenesis. In hydrodynamic descriptions of cohesive tissues, their occurrence implies a non-zero rate of variation of cell density. We show…
The migration behavior of colliding cells is critically determined by transient contact-interactions. During these interactions, the motility machinery, including the front-rear polarization of the cell, dynamically responds to surface…
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 various cellular processes, biofilaments like F-actin and F-tubulin are able to exploit chemical energy associated to polymerization to perform mechanical work against an external load. The force-velocity relationship quantitatively…
Interactions between crawling cells, which are essential for many biological processes, can be quantified by measuring cell-cell collisions. Conventionally, experiments of cell-cell collisions are conducted on two-dimensional flat…
Collective cell migration is a key driver of embryonic development, wound healing, and some types of cancer invasion. Here we provide a physical perspective of the mechanisms underlying collective cell migration. We begin with a catalogue…
Cell invasion and spatial pattern formation are two distinct manifestations of cellular self-organisation in development, regeneration, and disease. Here, we develop and analyse a unified theoretical framework that links these two seemingly…
When an experimentalist or a biological mechanism applies an external force onto a cell chemically sticking to its substrate, a reacting 'suction' force, due to the slow penetration of the surrounding fluid between the cell and the…
Force fluctuations exhibited in focal adhesions (FAs) that connect a cell to its extracellular environment, point to the complex role of the underlying machinery that controls cell migration. To elucidate the explicit role of myosin motors…
Animal cells form contractile structures to promote various functions, from cell motility to cell division. Force generation in these structures is often due to molecular motors such as myosin that require polar substrates for their…
Cells collectively migrate as a cluster in three-dimensional (3D) tissues, such as in embryogenesis and cancer invasion. Here, numerical simulations using a 3D vertex model show that polarized interfacial tension, expressing cell adhesion…
The study of the interactions of living adherent cells with mechanically stable (visco)elastic materials enables understanding and exploiting physiological phenomena mediated by cell-extracellular communication. However, insight on the…