Related papers: Mechanical Interaction Between Cells Facilitates M…
Contractile forces exerted on the surrounding extracellular matrix (ECM) lead to the alignment and stretching of constituent fibers within the vicinity of cells. As a consequence, the matrix reorganizes to form thick bundles of aligned…
Biological cells embedded in fibrous matrices have been observed to form inter-cellular bands of dense and aligned fibers, through which they mechanically interact over long distances. Such matrix-mediated cellular interactions have been…
Cell migration in fibreous extracellular matrix (ECM) is crucial to many physiological and pathological processes such as tissue regeneration, immune response and cancer progression. During migration, individual cells can generate active…
The extracellular matrix (ECM) is a highly complex structure through which biochemical and mechanical signals are transmitted. In processes of cell migration, the ECM also acts as a scaffold, providing structural support to cells as well as…
The unique nonlinear mechanics of the fibrous extracellular matrix (ECM) facilitates long-range cell-cell mechanical communications that would be impossible on linear elastic substrates. Past research has described the contribution of two…
Tumor metastasis, traditionally considered as random spreading of individual cancer cells, has been shown to also involve coordinated collective invasion in the tissue space. Here we demonstrate experimentally and computationally that…
Cellular contractility, migration, and extracellular matrix (ECM) mechanics are critical for a wide range of biological processes including embryonic development, wound healing, tissue morphogenesis, and regeneration. Even though the…
Understanding the interactions between cells and the extracellular matrix (ECM) during collective cell invasion is crucial for advancements in tissue engineering, cancer therapies, and regenerative medicine. This study focuses on the roles…
Cells crawling through tissues migrate inside a complex fibrous environment called the extracellular matrix (ECM), which provides signals regulating motility. Here we investigate one such well-known pathway, involving mutually antagonistic…
How cells move through the three-dimensional extracellular matrix (ECM) is of increasing interest in attempts to understand important biological processes such as cancer metastasis. Just as in motion on flat surfaces, it is expected that…
Living tissue is able to withstand large stresses in everyday life, yet it also actively adapts to dynamic loads. This remarkable mechanical behaviour emerges from the interplay between living cells and their non-living extracellular…
Neuronal and glial cells release diverse proteoglycans and glycoproteins, which aggregate in the extracellular space and form the extracellular matrix (ECM) that may in turn regulate major cellular functions. Brain cells also release…
Cancer cell invasion is recognised as one of the hallmarks of cancer and involves several inner-related multiscale processes that ultimately contribute to its spread into the surrounding tissue. In order to gain a deeper understanding of…
In a diversity of physiological contexts, eukaryotic cells adhere to an extracellular matrix (ECM), a disordered network with complex nonlinear mechanics. Such cells can perform mechanosensation: using local force probing they can measure…
The Extra-Cellular-Matrix (ECM) is a complex interconnected 3D network that provides structural support for the cells and tissues and defines organ architecture key for their healthy functioning. However, the intimate mechanisms by which…
We develop a microscopic biophysical model for self-organization and reshaping of artificial tissue, that is co-driven by microscopic active forces between cells and extracellular matrix (ECM), and macroscopic forces that develop within the…
A closer look at nature has recently brought more interest in exploring and utilizing intra-body communication networks composed of cells as intrinsic, perfectly biocompatible infrastructures to deliver therapeutics. Naturally occurring…
Cells within living soft biological tissues seem to promote the maintenance of a mechanical state within a defined range near a so-called set-point. This mechanobiological process is often referred to as mechanical homeostasis. During this…
Collective cell migration in 3D extracellular matrix (ECM) is crucial to many physiological and pathological processes. Migrating cells can generate active pulling forces via actin filament contraction, which are transmitted to the ECM…
Many active systems display nematic order, while interacting with their environment. In this work, we show theoretically how environment-stored memory acts an effective external field that aligns active nematics. The coupling to the…