Related papers: Microtubule Motility Analysis based on Time-Lapse …
Cell migration is a fundamental process for life and is highly dependent on the dynamical and mechanical properties of the cytoskeleton. Intensive physical and biochemical crosstalk between actin, microtubules, and intermediate filaments…
Precise positioning of the mitotic spindle is important for specifying the plane of cell division, which in turn determines how the cytoplasmic contents are partitioned into the daughter cells, and how the daughters are positioned within…
This work discusses preliminary work aimed at simulating and visualizing the growth process of a tiny structure inside the cell---the microtubule. Difficulty of recording the process lies in the fact that the tissue preparation method for…
Building on the striking similarity between the structure of the spindle during mitosis in living cells and nematic textures in confined liquid crystals, we use a continuum model of two-dimensional nematic liquid crystal droplets, to…
The proper positioning of the mitotic spindle is crucial for asymmetric cell division and generating cell diversity during development. Proper position in the single-cell embryo of Caenorhabditis elegans is achieved initially by the…
A structural relationship between the centrosome and cytoskeleton has been recognized for many years. Centrosomes typically reside near the nucleus, establishing and maintaining the nucleus-centrosome axis. This spatial arrangement is…
The effects of cell size and deformability on the lateral migration and deformation of living cells flowing through a rectangular microchannel has been numerically investigated and compared with the inertial-microfluidics data on detection…
Mechanical properties of the cell are important biomarkers for probing its architectural changes caused by cellular processes and/or pathologies. The development of microfluidic technologies have enabled measuring cell mechanics at…
Background: For faithful chromosome segregation during cell division, correct attachments must be established between sister chromosomes and microtubules from opposite spindle poles through kinetochores (chromosome bi-orientation).…
The cytoskeleton in eukaryotic cells plays several crucial roles. In terms of intracellular transport, motor proteins use the cytoskeletal filaments as a backbone along which they can actively transport biological cargos such as vesicles…
We analyze experimental observations of microtubules undergoing small fluctuations about a "balance point" when mixed in solution of two different kinesin motor proteins, KLP61F and Ncd. It has been proposed that the microtubule movement is…
Our work aims at using quantitative imaging tools to complement the limitation of noise encountered by high resolution fluorescence microscopy methods. Several cycles of fluorophore activation, imaging and deactivation produce a sequence of…
During cell division, sister chromatids are segregated by the mitotic spindle, a bipolar assembly of interdigitating antiparallel polar filaments called microtubules. Establishing a stable overlap region is essential for maintenance of…
Microtubules self-organize to form part of the cellular cytoskeleton. They give cells their shape and play a crucial role in cell division and intracellular transport. Strikingly, microtubules driven by motor proteins reorganize into stable…
Motor-driven cytoskeletal remodeling in cellular systems can often be accompanied by a diffusive-like effect at local scales, but distinguishing the contributions of the ordering process, such as active contraction of a network, from this…
The fate of every eukaryotic cell subtly relies on the exceptional mechanical properties of microtubules. Despite significant efforts, understanding their unusual mechanics remains elusive. One persistent, unresolved mystery is the…
In the mitotic spindle microtubules attach to kinetochores via catch bonds during metaphase, and microtubule depolymerization forces give rise to stochastic chromosome oscillations. We investigate the cooperative stochastic microtubule…
T cells use sophisticated shape dynamics (morphodynamics) to migrate towards and neutralise infected and cancerous cells. However, there is limited quantitative understanding of the migration process in 3D extracellular matrices (ECMs) and…
We seek to characterize the motility of mouse fibroblasts on 2D substrates. Utilizing automated tracking techniques, we find that cell trajectories are super-diffusive, where displacements scale faster than t^(1/2) in all directions. Two…
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…