Related papers: Actin filaments pushing against a barrier: Compari…
Grain boundary roughness can affect electronic and mechanical properties of two-dimensional materials. This roughness depends crucially on the growth process by which the two-dimensional material is formed. To investigate the key mechanisms…
Recent observations of molecular clouds show that dense filaments are the sites of present-day star formation. Thus, it is necessary to understand the filament formation process because these filaments provide the initial condition for star…
Competition for resources is a fundamental constraint that guides the self-organization of natural, biological, and human systems, ranging from urban planning and ecosystem development to intracellular pattern formation. Here, we reveal…
Theory and experiment have established that F-actin filaments are strongly attached to the intracellular parasites (such as Listeria) they propel with ``comet tails''. We consider the implications of these observations for propulsion. By…
Confinement and wall effects are known to affect the kinematics and propulsive characteristics of swimming microorganisms. When a solid body is dragged through a viscous fluid at constant velocity, the presence of a wall increases fluid…
Movement within eukaryotic cells largely originates from localized forces exerted by myosin motors on scaffolds of actin filaments. Although individual motors locally exert both contractile and extensile forces, large actomyosin structures…
The large active wing deformation is a significant way to generate high aerodynamic forces required in bat flapping flight. Besides the twisting, the elementary morphing models of a bat wing are proposed, such as wing-bending in the…
A model for polar filaments interacting via molecular motor complexes is investigated which exhibits bifurcations to spatial patterns. It is shown that the homogeneous distribution of filaments, such as actin or microtubules, may become…
We present a generic theory for the dynamics of a stiff filament under tension, in an active medium with orientational correlations, such as a microtubule in contractile actin. In sharp contrast to the case of a passive medium, we find the…
The interstellar medium is characterised by an intricate filamentary network which exhibits complex structures. These show a variety of different shapes (e.g. junctions, rings, etc.) deviating strongly from the usually assumed cylindrical…
Inside cells of living organisms, actin filaments and microtubules self-assemble and dissemble dynamically by incorporating actin or tubulin from the cell plasma or releasing it into their tips' surroundings. Such reaction-diffusion systems…
Filamentous cyanobacteria are one of the oldest and today still most abundant lifeforms on earth, with manifold implications in ecology and economics. Their flexible filaments, often several hundred cells long, exhibit gliding motility in…
Actin is a filamentary protein which has many remarkable properties making it an ideal system for the study of the dynamics and mechanics of semi-flexible polymer solutions and gels; actin has a persistence length of over 10 microns and can…
The principles underlying plant development are extended to allow a more molecular mechanism to elaborate the schema by which ground cells differentiate into vascular cells. Biophysical considerations dictate that linear dynamics are not…
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…
Amoeboid cell migration is characterized by frequent changes of the direction of motion and resembles a persistent random walk on long time scales. Although it is well known that cell migration is typically driven by the actin cytoskeleton,…
Growth patterns generated by filamentous organisms (e.g. actinomycetes and fungi) involve spatial and temporal dynamics at different length scales. Several mathematical models have been proposed in the last thirty years to address these…
The mechanical properties of the cell depend crucially on the tension of its cytoskeleton, a biopolymer network that is put under stress by active motor proteins. While the fibrous nature of the network is known to strongly affect the…
Cell polarization underlies many cellular processes, such as differentiation, migration, and budding. Many living cells, such as budding yeast and fission yeast, use cytoskeletal structures to actively transport proteins to one location on…
Active filament-like systems propelling along their backbone exist across the scales ranging from motor-driven bio-filaments to worms and robotic chains. In macroscopic active filaments such as chain of robots, in contrast to their…