Related papers: A Python based automated tracking routine for myos…
In the presence of ATP, molecular motors generate active force dipoles that drive suspensions of protein filaments far from thermodynamic equilibrium, leading to exotic dynamics and pattern formation. Microscopic modelling can help to…
Optical tracking in vivo experiments reveal that diffusion of particles in biological cells is strongly enhanced in the presence of ATP and the experimental data for animal cells could previously be reproduced within a phenomenological…
The actin cytoskeleton of cells is in continuous motion due to both polymerization of new filaments and their contraction by myosin II molecular motors. Through adhesion to the substrate, such intracellular flow can be converted into cell…
The actin and microtubule cytoskeletons are vital structures for cell growth and development across all species. While individual molecular mechanisms underpinning actin and microtubule dynamics have been intensively studied, principles…
Essentially all biology is active and dynamic. Biological entities autonomously sense, com- pute, and respond using energy-coupled ratchets that can produce force and do work. The cytoskeleton, along with its associated proteins and motors,…
We present feature finding and tracking algorithms in 3D in living cells, and demonstrate their utility to measure metrics important in cell biological processes. We developed a computational imaging hybrid approach that combines automated…
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…
Analyzing nonlinear conformational relaxation dynamics in elastic networks corresponding to two classical motor proteins, we find that they respond by well-defined internal mechanical motions to various initial deformations and that these…
Protein interaction networks (PIN) are popular means to visualize the proteome. However, PIN datasets are known to be noisy, incomplete and biased by the experimental protocols used to detect protein interactions. This paper aims at…
The one-dimensional crawling movement of a cell is considered in this theoretical study. Our active gel model shows that for a cell with weakly mechanosensitive adhesion complexes, as myosin contractility increases, a cell starts to move at…
We examine the mechanism of bundling of cytoskeletal actin filaments by two representative bundling proteins, fascin and espin. Small-angle X-ray studies show that increased binding from linkers drives a systematic \textit{overtwist} of…
We introduce a mathematical model for the mechanical behaviour of the eukaryotic cell cytoskeleton. This discrete model involves a regular array of pre-stressed protein filaments that exhibit resistance to enthalpic stretching, joined at…
Experiments suggest that the migration of some cells in the three-dimensional extra cellular matrix bears strong resemblance to one-dimensional cell migration. Motivated by this observation, we construct and study a minimal one-dimensional…
We have studied the elastic response of actin networks with both compliant and rigid crosslinks by modeling molecular motors as force dipoles. Our finite element simulations show that for compliant crosslinkers such as filamin A, the…
We demonstrate that internal pivot-like defects, arising from rigor mutant motor proteins that bind without stepping, fundamentally reshape the dynamics of semiflexible filaments in two-dimensional motility assays. Using large-scale…
In multicellular systems, adhesion complexes, such as those composed of E-cadherin and associated catenins, mechanically couple neighboring cells by directly linking their actin-based cytoskeletal assemblies. However, the mechanics of how…
Living systems often exhibit internal driving: active, molecular processes drive nonequilibrium phenomena such as metabolism or migration. Active gels constitute a fascinating class of internally driven matter, where molecular motors exert…
The polymerization dynamics of double-stranded polymers, such as actin filaments, is investigated theoretically using simple chemical kinetic models that explicitly take into account some microscopic details of the polymer structure and the…
Cytoskeletal networks of biopolymers are cross-linked by a variety of proteins. Experiments have shown that dynamic cross-linking with physiological linker proteins leads to complex stress relaxation and enables network flow at long times.…
Active filaments, such as microtubules with attached cargo-carrying motor proteins, are important dynamic structures for fluid transport in and around living cells. The mathematical models of active filaments appearing in the literature…