Related papers: Modelling adhesion-independent cell migration
In this paper, we present a 2D numerical model developed to simulate the dynamics of soft, deformable particles. To accommodate significant particle deformations, the particle surface is represented as a narrow shell composed of mass points…
Active gels play an important role in biology and in inspiring biomimetic active materials, due to their ability to change shape, size and create their own morphology; the relevant mechanics behind these changes is driven by…
Cell crawling on flat substrates is based on intracellular flows of the actin cytoskeleton that are driven by both actin polymerization at the front and myosin contractility at the back. The new experimental tool of optogenetics makes it…
We investigate the dynamical coupling between the motion and the deformation of a single self-propelled domain based on two different model systems in two dimensions. One is represented by the set of ordinary differential equations for the…
We use a simple and efficient computer model to investigate the physical properties of bilayer membranes. The amphiphilic molecules are modeled as short rigid trimers with finite range pair interactions between them. The pair potentials…
A number of novel experimental and theoretical results have recently been obtained on active soft matter, demonstrating the various interesting universal and anomalous features of this kind of driven systems. Here we consider a fundamental…
A mathematical model is proposed for shape evolution and locomotion of fish epidermal keratocytes on elastic substrates. The model is based on mechanosensing concepts: cells apply contractile forces onto the elastic substrate, while cell…
Cell sorting, whereby a heterogeneous cell mixture segregates and forms distinct homogeneous tissues, is one of the main collective cell behaviors at work during development. Although differences in interfacial energies are recognized to be…
We investigate the dynamics of a colony of crawling, proliferating cells with a minimal, mechanical cell model. The cells consist of two disks, modelling the cell body and a pseudopod, connected by a finite extensible spring. The cells…
In this paper we consider nonlinearly elastic, frame-indifferent, and singularly perturbed two-well models for materials undergoing solid-solid phase transitions in any space dimensions, and we perform a simultaneous passage to…
There are numerous scenarios in which populations of cells migrate in crowded environments. Typical examples include wound healing, cancer growth and embryo development. In these crowded environments cells are able to interact with each…
A curious feature of organ and organoid morphogenesis is that in certain cases, spatial oscillations in the thickness of the growing "film" are out-of-phase with the deformation of the slower-growing "substrate," while in other cases, the…
The mechanics of cells is strongly affected by molecular motors that generate forces in the cellular cytoskeleton. We develop a model for cytoskeletal networks driven out of equilibrium by molecular motors exerting transient contractile…
Cells modify their volume in response to changes in osmotic pressure but it is usually assumed that other active shape variations do not involve significant volume fluctuations. Here we report experiments demonstrating that water transport…
The internal dynamics of active gels, both in artificial (in-vitro) model systems and inside the cytoskeleton of living cells, has been extensively studied by experiments of recent years. These dynamics are probed using tracer particles…
A controllable soft solid is realised in vortex matter in a type II superconductor. The two-dimensional unit cell area can be varied by a factor of $10^4$ in the solid phase, without a change of crystal symmetry offering easy exploration of…
The elastic energy of a bending-resistant interface depends both on its geometry and its material composition. We consider such a heterogeneous interface in the plane, modeled by a curve equipped with an additional density function. The…
When it is polarised, a cell develops an asymmetric distribution of specific molecular markers, cytoskeleton and cell membrane shape. Polarisation can occur spontaneously or be triggered by external signals, like gradients of signalling…
We exploit a two-dimensional model [7], [6] and [1] describing the elastic behavior of the wall of a flexible blood vessel which takes interaction with surrounding muscle tissue and the 3D fluid flow into account. We study time periodic…
The swimming of cells, far from any boundary, can arise in the absence of long-range liquid-crystalline order within the cytoplasm, but simple models of this effect are lacking. Here we present a two-dimensional model of droplet…