Related papers: Understanding cytoskeletal avalanches using mechan…
In many complex systems a continuous input of energy over time can be suddenly relaxed in the form of avalanches. Conventional avalanche models disregard the possibility of internal dynamical effects in the inter-avalanche periods, and thus…
Living cells are soft bodies of a characteristic form, but endowed with a capacity for a steady turnover of their structures. Both of these material properties, i.e. recovery of the shape after an external stress has been imposed and…
The interplay between cytoskeletal architecture and the nonlinearity of the interactions due to bucklable filaments plays a key role in modulating the cell's mechanical stability and affecting its structural rearrangements. We study a model…
Under many physiological and pathological conditions such as division and migration, cells undergo dramatic deformations, under which their mechanical integrity is supported by cytoskeletal networks (i.e. intermediate filaments, F-actin,…
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…
Cells contain elaborate and interconnected networks of protein polymers which make up the cytoskeleton. The cytoskeleton governs the internal positioning and movement of vesicles and organelles, and controls dynamic changes in cell…
During development and under normal physiological conditions, biological tissues are continuously subjected to substantial mechanical stresses. In response to large deformations cells in a tissue must undergo multicellular rearrangements in…
Intracellular transport is essential for maintaining proper cellular function in most eukaryotic cells, with perturbations in active transport resulting in several types of disease. Efficient delivery of critical cargos to specific…
Live cells have ambiguous mechanical properties. They were often described as either elastic solids or viscoelastic fluids and have recently been classified as soft glassy materials characterized by weak power-law rheology. Nonlinear…
The cytoskeleton provides eukaryotic cells with mechanical support and helps them perform their biological functions. It is a network of semiflexible polar protein filaments and many accessory proteins that bind to these filaments, regulate…
Mechanical deformation of amorphous solids can be described as consisting of an elastic part in which the stress increases linearly with strain, up to a yield point at which the solid either fractures or starts deforming plastically. It is…
Developing tissues often maintain mechanical coherence while continuously remodeling through cellular processes such as cell divisions and rearrangements. In this way, they are an example of amorphous solids. In passive amorphous solids,…
The actin cytoskeleton is a key component in the machinery of eukaryotic cells, and it selfassembles out of equilibrium into a wide variety of biologically crucial structures. While the molecular mechanisms involved are well characterized,…
We investigate the breakdown of disordered networks under the action of an increasing external---mechanical or electrical---force. We perform a mean-field analysis and estimate scaling exponents for the approach to the instability. By…
The cells and tissues that make up our body juggle contradictory mechanical demands. It is crucial for their survival to be able to withstand large mechanical loads, but it is equally crucial for them to produce forces and actively change…
Neuronal avalanche is a spontaneous neuronal activity which obeys a power-law distribution of population event sizes with an exponent of -3/2. It has been observed in the superficial layers of cortex both \emph{in vivo} and \emph{in vitro}.…
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…
The mechanical properties of polymer gels based on cytoskeleton proteins (e.g. actin) have been studied extensively due to their significant role in biological cell motility and in maintaining the cell's structural integrity. Microrheology…
We use numerical simulations to study the dynamics of dense assemblies of self-propelled particles in the limit of extremely large, but finite, persistence times. In this limit, the system evolves intermittently between mechanical…
Crystal plasticity is mediated through dislocations, which form knotted configurations in a complex energy landscape. Once they disentangle and move, they may also be impeded by permanent obstacles with finite energy barriers or frustrating…