Related papers: Cell motility, synchronization, and cell traction …
Motile cilia are a striking example of functional cellular organelle, conserved across all the eukaryotic species. Motile cilia allow swimming of cells and small organisms and transport of liquids across epithelial tissues. Whilst the…
We show that spontaneous density segregation in dense systems of aligning circle swimmers is a condensation phenomenon at odds with the phase separation scenarios usually observed in two-dimensional active matter. The condensates, which…
Active matter comprises individually driven units that convert locally stored energy into mechanical motion. Interactions between driven units lead to a variety of non-equilibrium collective phenomena in active matter. One of such phenomena…
E. coli bacteria swim following a run and tumble pattern. In the run state all flagella join in a single helical bundle that propels the cell body along approximately straight paths. When one or more flagellar motors reverse direction the…
Biological membranes are host to proteins and molecules which may form domain-like structures resulting in spatially-varying material properties. Vesicles with such heterogeneous membranes can exhibit intricate shapes at equilibrium and…
We present a modelling framework for the dynamics of cells structured by the concentration of a micromolecule they contain. We derive general equations for the evolution of the cell population and of the extra-cellular concentration of the…
Bacteria commonly live in structured communities that affect human health and influence ecological systems. Heterogeneous populations, such as motile and non-motile populations, often coexist in bacteria communities. Motile subpopulations…
Active fluids, such as cytoskeletal filaments, bacterial colonies and epithelial cell layers, exhibit distinctive orientational coherence, often characterized by nematic order and topological defects. By contrast, little is known about…
The present article is an invited contribution to the Encyclopedia of Complexity and System Science, Robert A. Meyers Ed., Springer New York (2009). It is a review of the biophysical mechanisms that underly cell motility. It mainly focuses…
Cell migration in confining physiological environments relies on the concerted dynamics of several cellular components, including protrusions, adhesions with the environment, and the cell nucleus. However, it remains poorly understood how…
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…
Cell spreading and motility on an adhesive substrate are driven by the active physical forces generated by the actin cytoskeleton. We have recently shown that coupling curved membrane complexes to protrusive forces, exerted by the actin…
We investigate how a symmetric penetrable object immersed in an active fluid becomes motile due to a negative drag acting in the direction of its velocity. While similar phenomena have been reported only for active fluids that posses polar…
Dense suspensions of swimming bacteria are known to exhibit collective behaviour arising from the interplay of steric and hydrodynamic interactions. Unconfined suspensions exhibit transient, recurring vortices and jets, whereas those…
Contact inhibition plays a crucial role in the motility of cells, the process of wound healing, and the formation of tumors. By mimicking the mechanical motion of calls crawling on a substrate using a pseudopod, we constructed a minimal…
We use moving light patterns to control the motion of {\it Escherichia coli} bacteria whose motility is photo-activated. Varying the pattern speed controls the magnitude and direction of the bacterial flux, and therefore the accumulation of…
Collective cell migration is a highly regulated process involved in wound healing, cancer metastasis and morphogenesis. Mechanical interactions among cells provide an important regulatory mechanism to coordinate such collective motion.…
We present the first time-resolved measurements of the oscillatory velocity field induced by swimming unicellular microorganisms. Confinement of the green alga C. reinhardtii in stabilized thin liquid films allows simultaneous tracking of…
In biological tissues, it is now well-understood that mechanical cues are a powerful mechanism for pattern regulation. While much work has focused on interactions between cells and external substrates, recent experiments suggest that cell…
Collective motion is a phenomenon observed across length scales in nature, from bacterial swarming and tissue migration to the flocking of animals. The mechanisms underlying this behavior vary significantly depending on the biological…