Related papers: Universal kinetics for engagement of mechanosensin…
Coordinated and cooperative motion of cells is essential for embryonic development, tissue morphogenesis, wound healing and cancer invasion. A predictive understanding of the emergent mechanical behaviors in collective cell motion is…
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…
Living tissues undergo wetting transitions: On a surface, they can either form a droplet-like cell aggregate or spread as a monolayer of migrating cells. Tissue wetting depends not only on the chemical but also on the mechanical properties…
The ability of cells to sense and respond to the mechanical properties of their environments is fundamental to a range of cellular behaviours, with substrate stiffness increasingly being found to be a key signalling factor. Although active…
Using a minimal model of cells or cohesive cell layers as continuum active elastic media, we examine the effect of substrate thickness and stiffness on traction forces exerted by strongly adhering cells. We obtain a simple expression for…
Many animal cells change their shape depending on the stiffness of the substrate on which they are cultured: they assume small, rounded shapes in soft ECMs, they elongate within stiffer ECMs, and flatten out on hard substrates. Cells tend…
Mechanical cues like the rigidity of the substrate are main determinants for the decision making of adherent cells. Here we use a mechano-chemical model to predict the cellular response to varying substrate stiffness. The model equations…
We suggest a 3D phase field model to describe 3D cell spreading on a flat substrate. The model is a simplified version of a minimal model that was developed in [1]. Our model couples the order parameter $u$ with 3D polarization…
Adhesive cell-substrate interactions are crucial for cell motility and are responsible for the necessary traction that propels cells. These interactions can also change the shape of the cell, analogous to liquid droplet wetting on adhesive…
The mechanosensitivity of cells, which determines how they are able to respond to mechanical signals received from their environment, is crucial for the functioning of all biological systems. In experiments, cells placed on cyclically…
Eukaryotic cells adhere to extracellular matrix during the normal development of the organism, forming static adhesion as well as during cell motility. We study this process by considering a simplified coarse-grained model of a vesicle that…
Understanding cellular response to mechanical forces is immensely important for a plethora of biological processes. Focal adhesions are multi-molecular protein assemblies that connect the cell to the extracellular matrix and play a pivotal…
One of the most unique physical features of cell adhesion to external surfaces is the active generation of mechanical force at the cell-material interface. This includes pulling forces generated by contractile polymer bundles and networks,…
The behaviour and fate of tissue cells is controlled by the rigidity and geometry of their adhesive environment, possibly through forces localized to sites of adhesion. We introduce a mechanical model that predicts cellular force…
The evolutionary success of bacteria lies in their ability to form complex surface-associated communities in diverse biophysical settings. However, it remains poorly understood how compliance of soft surfaces, measured in terms of their…
There is compelling evidence that substrate stiffness affects cell adhesion as well as cytoskeleton organization and contractile activity. This work was designed to study the cytoskeletal contractile activity of cells plated on microposts…
Many types of motile cells perform durotaxis, namely, directed migration following gradients of substrate stiffness. Recent experiments have revealed that cell monolayers can migrate toward stiffer regions even when individual cells do not…
Cell spreading is investigated at various scales in order to understand motility of living cells which is essential for a range of physiological activities in higher organisms as well as in microbes. At a microscopic scale, it has been seen…
Biological cells are able to adapt their behaviour in response to environmental cues. Durotaxis is a phenomenon in which cells adjust their migration depending on the mechanical properties of a surrounding substrate. Although durotaxis has…
Cells move differently on substrates with different elasticities. In particular, the persistence time of their motion is higher on stiffer substrates. We show that this behavior will result in a net transport of cells directed up a…