Related papers: Microtubule-based active fluids with improved life…
Living cells dynamically modulate the local morphologies of their actin cytoskeletons to perform biological functions, including force transduction, intracellular transport, and cell division. A major challenge is to understand how diverse…
Microtubules are a major component of the cytoskeleton distinguished by highly dynamic behavior both in vitro and in vivo. We propose a general mathematical model that accounts for the growth, catastrophe, rescue and nucleation processes in…
A nonlinear dynamical system model that approximates a microscopic Gibbs field model for the yielding of a viscoplastic material subjected to varying external stress recently reported in [1] is presented. The predictions of the model are in…
A novel theoretical model of dynamic instability of a system of linear (1D) microtubules (MTs) in a bounded domain is introduced for studying the role of a cell edge in vivo and analyzing the effect of competition for a limited amount of…
Microfluidics involves the manipulation of flows at the microscale, typically requiring external power sources to generate pressure gradients. Alternatively, harnessing flows from active fluids, which are usually chaotic, has been proposed…
In vitro reconstituted active systems, such as the ATP-driven microtubule bundle suspension developed by the Dogic group, provide a fertile testing ground for elucidating the phenomenology of active liquid crystalline states. Controlling…
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…
In this review we summarize theoretical progress in the field of active matter, placing it in the context of recent experiments. Our approach offers a unified framework for the mechanical and statistical properties of living matter:…
Large scale motion of cytoplasm called cytoplasmic streaming occurs in some large eukaryotic cells to stir the cell's constituents. In Drosophila oocytes, microtubules have been observed to undergo undulating motion, curving to form…
The microtubule network, an important part of the cytoskeleton, is constantly remodeled by alternating phases of growth and shrinkage of individual filaments. Plus-end tracking proteins (+TIPs) interact with the microtubule and in many…
A multi-time extension of a density correlation function is introduced to reveal temporal information about dynamical heterogeneity in glass-forming liquids. We utilize a multi-time correlation function that is analogous to the higher-order…
Active solids consume energy to allow for actuation, shape change, and wave propagation not possible in equilibrium. Whereas active interfaces have been realized across many experimental systems, control of three-dimensional (3D) bulk…
We study two regimes of flow in multiple three-dimensional toroidal channels by tracking the fluorescent spherical particles in the kinesin-driven microtubule systems: ``chaotic'' flow and ``coherent'' flow. In the smallest aspect ratio…
In the cellular phenomena of cytoplasmic streaming, molecular motors carrying cargo along a network of microtubules entrain the surrounding fluid. The piconewton forces produced by individual motors are sufficient to deform long…
Three problems in the statistical mechanics of models for an assembly of molecular motors interacting with cytoskeletal filaments are reviewed. First, a description of the hydrodynamical behaviour of density-density correlations in…
Many organisms leverage an interplay between shape and activity to generate motion and adapt to their environment. Embedding such feedback into synthetic microrobots could eliminate the need for sensors, software, and actuators, yet current…
In this paper a quantum mechanical description of the assembly/disassembly process for microtubules is proposed. We introduce creation and annihilation operators that raise or lower the microtubule length by a tubulin layer. Following that,…
Kinesin motors can induce a buckling instability in a microtubule with a fixed minus end. Here we show that by modifying the surface with a protein-repellent functionalization and using clusters of kinesin motors, the microtubule can…
This study aims at finding a method for constructing molecular dynamics like models using the formalism of cellular automata for fast simulation of fluid dynamic systems (including compressible phenomena). In as much as the results…
Active materials are capable of converting free energy into directional motion, giving rise to striking dynamical phenomena. Developing a general understanding of their structure in relation to the underlying non-equilibrium physics would…