Related papers: Motor-free Contractility in Active Gels
A new model is proposed to explain coiling of myelins composed of fluid bilayers. This model allows the constituent bilayer cylinders of a myelin to be non-coaxial and the bilayer lateral tension to vary from bilayer to bilayer. The…
In living cells, molecular motors convert chemical energy into mechanical work. Its thermodynamic energy efficiency, i.e. the ratio of output mechanical work to input chemical energy, is usually high. However, using two-state models, we…
Active solids consist of elastically coupled out-of-equilibrium units performing work. They are central to autonomous processes, such as locomotion, self-oscillations and rectification, in biological systems,designer materials and robotics.…
Intracellular cargos which are transported by molecular motors move stochastically along cytoskeleton filaments. In particular for bidirectionally transported cargos it is an open question whether the characteristics of their motion can…
Animal cells are active, contractile objects. While bioassays address the molecular characterization of cell contractility, the mechanical characterization of the active forces in cells remains challenging. Here by confronting theoretical…
We present a simple model for the bidirectional dynamics of actin bundles with alternating polarities in gliding assays with non-processive myosin motors. In the model, the bundle is represented as an elastic chain consisting of monomers…
Spatiotemporal patterns are common in biological systems. For electrically-coupled cells previous studies of pattern formation have mainly used external forcing as the main bifurcation parameter. The purpose of this paper is to show that…
In this work we study the assisted translocation of a polymer across a membrane nanopore, inside which a molecular motor exerts a force fuelled by the hydrolysis of ATP molecules. In our model the motor switches to its active state for a…
Active matter locally converts chemical energy into mechanical work and, for this reason, it provides new mechanisms of pattern formation. In particular, active gels made of protein motors and filaments are far-from-equilibrium systems that…
We investigate the nonequilibrium dynamics of semiflexible polymers driven by motor proteins (MPs) in two-dimensional motility assays under harmonic confinement. Using a coarse-grained agent-based model that incorporates stochastic motor…
Despite significant fluctuation under thermal noise, biological machines in cells perform their tasks with exquisite precision. Using molecular simulation of a coarse-grained model and theoretical arguments we envisaged how kinesin, a…
Evolution of the spatial arrangement of cells in a primary culture of cardiac tissue derived from newborn rats was studied experimentally over extended period. It was found that cells attract each other spontaneously to form a clustered…
We construct a homogeneous, nonlinear elastic constitutive law, that models aspects of the mechanical behavior of inhomogeneous fibrin networks. Fibers in such networks buckle when in compression. We model this as a loss of stiffness in…
Cellular form and function emerge from complex mechanochemical systems within the cytoplasm. No systematic strategy currently exists to infer large-scale physical properties of a cell from its many molecular components. This is a…
Cells control the size and organization of biomolecular condensates formed by liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), but multiple mechanisms likely contribute to this control and remain to be fully elucidated. Here we propose a…
Effective organismal behavior responds appropriately to changes in the surrounding environment. Attaining this delicate balance of sensitivity and stability is a hallmark of the animal kingdom. By studying the locomotory behavior of a…
The study of the interactions of living adherent cells with mechanically stable (visco)elastic materials enables understanding and exploiting physiological phenomena mediated by cell-extracellular communication. However, insight on the…
We develop a model to describe the force generated by the polymerization of an array of parallel biofilaments. The filaments are assumed to be coupled only through mechanical contact with a movable barrier. We calculate the filament density…
Adhesive cell-substrate interactions are crucial for cell motility and are responsible for the necessary traction that propels cells. These interactions can also change the shape of the cell, analogous to liquid droplet wetting on adhesive…
The collective action of actively contractile units embedded in elastic biopolymer networks plays a crucial role in regulating the network's macroscopic mechanical response. Here, we investigate how the macroscopic boundary stress in model…