Related papers: The Poisson ratio of the cellular actin cortex is …
Mechanically active cells in soft media act as force dipoles. The resulting elastic interactions are long-ranged and favor the formation of strings. We show analytically that due to screening, the effective interaction between strings…
The actin cortex is a thin layer of actin, myosin, and actin binding proteins that underlies the membrane of most animal cells. It is highly dynamic and can undergo remodelling on time-scales of tens of seconds thanks to protein turnover…
Living cells exhibit an important out-of-equilibrium mechanical activity, mainly due to the forces generated by molecular motors. These motor proteins, acting individually or collectively on the cytoskeleton, contribute to the violation of…
The cell cortex is a thin layer beneath the plasma membrane that gives animal cells mechanical resistance and drives most of their shape changes, from migration, division to multicellular morphogenesis. It is mainly composed of actin…
Architected 2D lattice materials are appealing for shape-shifting applications due to the tunable sign of Poisson's ratio. It is commonly believed that the positive and negative Poisson's ratios lead to anticlastic and synclastic curvatures…
Gradual disruption of the actin cytoskeleton induces a series of structural shape changes in cells leading to a transformation of cylindrical cell extensions into a periodic chain of "pearls". Quantitative measurements of the pearling…
The ability to control Poisson's ratio of functional materials has been one of the main objectives of researchers attempting to develop structures efficient from the perspective of protective, biomedical and soundproofing devices. This task…
We investigate the mechanical interplay between the spatial organization of the actin cytoskeleton and the shape of animal cells adhering on micropillar arrays. Using a combination of analytical work, computer simulations and in vitro…
Neuronal cells change their growth properties in response to external physical stimuli such as variations in external temperature, stiffness of the growth substrate, or topographical guidance cues. Detailed knowledge of the mechanisms that…
Living cells adapt and respond actively to the mechanical properties of their environment. In addition to biochemical mechanotransduction, evidence exists for a myosin-dependent, purely mechanical sensitivity to the stiffness of the…
The actomyosin cytoskeleton, a protein assembly comprising actin fibers and the myosin molecular motor, drives various cellular dynamics through contractile force generation at high densities. However, the relationship between the density…
Neural responses are highly variable, and some portion of this variability arises from fluctuations in modulatory factors that alter their gain, such as adaptation, attention, arousal, expected or actual reward, emotion, and local metabolic…
Developing tissues need to pattern themselves in space and time. A prevalent mechanism to achieve this are pulsatile active stresses generated by the actin cytoskeleton. Active gel theory is a powerful tool to model the dynamics of…
The actin cortex is a thin layer of actin filaments and myosin motors beneath the outer membrane of animal cells. It determines the cells' mechanical properties and forms important morphological structures. Physical descriptions of the…
In glass, starting from a dependence of the Angell's fragility on the Poisson ratio [V. N. Novikov and A. P. Sokolov, Nature 431, 961 (2004)], and a dependence of the Poisson ratio on the atomic packing density [G. N. Greaves et al., Nat.…
The actin cortex of an animal cell is a thin polymeric layer attached to the inner side of the plasma membrane. It plays a key role in shape regulation and pattern formation on the cellular and tissue scale and, in particular, generates the…
Cell shape changes are largely controlled by the actin cytoskeleton, a dynamic filament network beneath the plasma membrane. Several cell types can form extended free-standing protrusions not supported by an extracellular substrate or…
Poisson ratio is an important mechanical property that reveals the deformation patterns of materials. A positive Poisson ratio is a feature of the majority of materials. Some materials, however, display auxetic behaviors (i.e. possess…
Materials with a negative Poisson's ratio, also known as auxetic materials, exhibit unusual and counterintuitive mechanical behavior - becoming fatter in cross-section when stretched. Such behavior is mostly attributed to some special…
The mechanical environment of a substrate plays a key role in influencing the behavior of adherent biological cells. Traditional tunable substrates have limitations as their mechanical properties cannot be dynamically altered in-situ during…