Related papers: Topological defects of integer charge in cell mono…

In confluent cell monolayers, patterns of cell forces and motion are systematically altered near topological defects in cell shape. In turn, defects have been proposed to alter cell density, extrusion, and invasion, but it remains unclear…

Monolayers of anisotropic cells exhibit long-ranged orientational order and topological defects. During the development of organisms, orientational order often influences morphogenetic events. However, the linkage between the mechanics of…

In developing organisms, internal cellular processes generate mechanical stresses at the tissue scale. The resulting deformations depend on the material properties of the tissue, which can exhibit long-ranged orientational order and…

Charge profiles in liquid electrolytes are of crucial importance for applications, such as supercapacitors, fuel cells, batteries, or the self-assembly of particles in colloidal or biological settings. However, creating localised (screened)…

There is now growing evidence of the emergence and biological functionality of liquid crystal features, including nematic order and topological defects, in cellular tissues. However, how such features that intrinsically rely on particle…

Epithelial monolayers are a central building block of complex organisms. Topological defects have emerged as important elements for single cell behavior in flat epithelia. Here we theoretically study such defects in a three-dimensional…

Cultured stem cells have become a standard platform not only for regenerative medicine and developmental biology but also for biophysical studies. Yet, the characterization of cultured stem cells at the level of morphology and macroscopic…

Using computer simulations we investigate the microscopic structure of the singular director field within a nematic droplet. As a theoretical model for nematic liquid crystals we take hard spherocylinders. To induce an overall topological…

We present experimental results in which a quasimonolayer of grains, shaped as equilateral triangular prisms, is vertically vibrated within circular and square confining cavities. The system exhibits a fluid phase characterized by sixfold…

Topological defects are at the root of the large-scale organization of liquid crystals. In two-dimensional active nematics, two classes of topological defects of charges $\pm 1/2$ are known to play a major role due to active stresses.…

Directional media, such as nematic liquid crystals and ferromagnets, are characterized by their topologically stabilized defects in directional order. In nematics, boundary conditions and surface-treated inclusions often create complex…

We show that topological defects in an ion-doped nematic liquid crystal can be used to manipulate the surface charge distribution on chemically homogeneous, charge-regulating external surfaces, using a minimal theoretical model. In…

Morphological trends in growing colonies of living cells are at the core of physiological and evolutionary processes. Using active gel equations, which include cell division, we show that shape changes during the growth can be regulated by…

Topological defects, which are singular points in a director field, play a major role in shaping active systems. Here, we experimentally study topological defects and the flow patterns around them, that are formed during the highly rapid…

Collective cell migration governs a range of physiological and pathological processes, from tissue morphogenesis to cancer invasion, in which topological defects arise as an inevitable consequence of frequent cellular rearrangement and…

Topological defects are found in a variety of systems, and their existence are robust under perturbations due to their topological nature. Here we introduce a new type of topological defects found in electromagnetic waves: topological spin…

Cell layers are often categorized as contractile or extensile active nematics but recent experiments on neural progenitor cells with induced $+1$ topological defects challenge this classification. In a bottom-up approach, we first study a…

During embryonic development, structures with complex geometry can emerge from planar epithelial monolayers and to study these shape transitions is of key importance for revealing the biophysical laws involved in the morphogenesis of…

Biological cells in living tissues form dynamic patterns with local orientational order and topological defects. Here we demonstrate an approach to produce cell monolayer with the predesigned orientational patterns using human dermal…

When colloidal particles are vertically confined to a gap of between 1.3-1.6 particle diameters, they pack into buckled crystals of particles in either "up" or "down" states. Neighboring particles tend to occupy opposite states, analogous…