Related papers: Scaling behavior in steady-state contractile actom…
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…
Collagen is the main structural and load-bearing element of various connective tissues, where it forms the extracellular matrix that supports cells. It has long been known that collagenous tissues exhibit a highly nonlinear stress-strain…
Actomyosin actively generates contractile forces that provide the plasma membrane with the deformation stresses essential to carry out biological processes. Although the contractile property of purified actomyosin has been extensively…
Cells accomplish diverse functions using the same molecular building blocks, from setting up cytoplasmic flows to generating mechanical forces. In particular, transitions between these non-equilibrium states are triggered by regulating the…
During animal development and homeostasis, the structure of tissues, including muscles, blood vessels and connective tissues adapts to mechanical strains in the extracellular matrix (ECM). These strains originate from the differential…
In this work, we study in detail the distribution of stochastic forces generated by the molecular motors activity, in the actin cortex of pre-muscular cells. By combining active and passive rheology experiments, performed on the same…
Actin cables are linear cytoskeletal structures that serve as tracks for myosin-based intracellular transport of vesicles and organelles in both yeast and mammalian cells. In a yeast cell undergoing budding, cables are in constant dynamic…
Active matter, exemplified by adaptive living materials such as the actomyosin cytoskeleton, can navigate material parameter space dynamically, leading to unconventional mechanical responses. In particular, it can self-drive toward elastic…
We investigate the mechanical interplay between the spatial organization of the actin cytoskeleton and the shape of animal cells adhering on micropillar arrays. Using a combination of analytical work, computer simulations and in vitro…
Cells control the size and organization of biomolecular condensates formed by liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), but multiple mechanisms likely contribute to this control and remain to be fully elucidated. Here we propose a…
Developing tissues need to pattern themselves in space and time. A prevalent mechanism to achieve this are pulsatile active stresses generated by the actin cytoskeleton. Active gel theory is a powerful tool to model the dynamics of…
The macromechanical properties of purely bundled in vitro actin networks are not only determined by the micromechanical properties of individual bundles but also by molecular unbinding events of the actin binding protein (ABP) fascin. Under…
We propose a statistical model of a large random network with high connectivity in order to describe the behavior of {\it E.\,coli} cells after exposure to acute stress. The building blocks of this network are feedback cycles typical of the…
Cellular cortex, which is a highly viscous thin cytoplasmic layer just below the cell membrane, controls the cell's mechanical properties, which can be characterized by a hydrodynamic length scale $\ell$. Cells actively regulate $\ell$ via…
The synthetic actin network arouses great interest as bio-material due to its soft and wet nature that mimics many biological scaffolding structures. Inside the cell, the actin network is regulated by tens of actin-binding proteins (ABP's),…
We present a minimal continuum model of strongly adhering cells as active contractile isotropic media and use the model to study the effect of the geometry of the adhesion patch in controlling the spatial distribution of traction and…
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…
We investigate the growth of a branched actin network under load. Using a combination of simulations and theory, we show that the network adapts to the load and exhibits two regimes: a finite velocity at low stress, followed by a power-law…
Internet, social media, neuronal or blood vessel are organized in complex networks. These networks are characterized by several quantities such as the underlying graph connectivity (topology), how they grow in time, scaling laws or by the…
Bundles of filaments and motors are central to contractility in cells. The classic example is striated muscle, where actomyosin contractility is mediated by highly organized sarcomeres which act as fundamental contractile units. However,…