Related papers: How does the extracellular matrix affect the rigid…
The packing problem of long thin filaments that are injected into confined spaces is of fundamental interest for physicists and biologists alike. How linear threads pack and coil is well known only for the ideal case of rigid containers,…
We propose a simple mathematical model to describe the mechanical relaxation of cells within a curved epithelial tissue layer represented by an arbitrary curve in two-dimensional space. This model generalises previous one-dimensional models…
There is compelling evidence that substrate stiffness affects cell adhesion as well as cytoskeleton organization and contractile activity. This work was designed to study the cytoskeletal contractile activity of cells plated on microposts…
This study investigates the probability of threading in star catenanes under good solvent conditions using molecular dynamics simulations, emphasizing the influence of ring rigidity. Threading in these systems arises from the interplay…
We study numerically how multiple deformable capsules squeeze into a constriction. This situation is largely encountered in microfluidic chips designed to manipulate living cells, which are soft entities. We use fully three-dimensional…
Morphogenesis, tissue regeneration and cancer invasion involve transitions in tissue morphology. These transitions, caused by collective cell migration (CCM), have been interpreted as active wetting/de-wetting transitions. This phenomenon…
It is widely appreciated that surface tension can dominate the behavior of liquids at small scales. Solids also have surface stresses of a similar magnitude, but they are usually overlooked. However, recent work has shown that these can…
Recent experimental and theoretical studies suggest that crystallization and glass-like solidification are useful analogies for understanding cell ordering in confluent biological tissues. It remains unexplored how cellular ordering…
Cells exert traction forces on compliant substrates and can induce surface instabilities that appear as characteristic wrinkling patterns. Here, we develop a mechanical description of cell-induced wrinkling on soft substrates using a thin…
We study the shapes of elastic membranes under the simultaneous exertion of tensile and compressive forces when the translational symmetry along the tension direction is broken. We predict a multitude of novel morphological phases in…
The interaction of fluid membranes with a scaffold, which can be a planar surface or a more complex structure, is intrinsic to a number of systems - from artificial supported bilayers and vesicles to cellular membranes. In principle, these…
We made a link between Extra Cellular Matrix (ECM) plasticity and the morphologi cal changes in synapses after synaptic excitation. A recent study by Zhang et al \cite{zhang} showed tha t transmembrane voltage causes movement of the cell…
We study the dynamics of rigid spheres embedded in viscoelastic media and address two questions of importance to microrheology. First we calculate the complete response to an external force of a single bead in a homogeneous elastic network…
The vertex model is widely used to describe the dynamics of epithelial tissues, because of its simplicity and versatility and the direct inclusion of biophysical parameters. Here, it is shown that quite generally, when cells modify their…
We predict spontaneous nematic order in an ensemble of active force generators with elastic interactions as a minimal model for early nematic alignment of short stress fibers in non-motile, adhered cells. Mean-field theory is formally…
We consider how membrane fluctuations can modify the miscibility of lipid mixtures, that is to say how the phase diagram of a boundary-constrained membrane is modified when the membrane is allowed to fluctuate freely in the case of zero…
Electrostatic theory preserves charges, but allows dipolar excitations. Elasticity theory preserves dipoles, but allows quadrupolar (Eshelby like) plastic events. Charged amorphous granular systems are interesting in their own right; here…
Cells are modeled with spherical grains connected each other. Each cell can shrink and swell by transporting its fluid content to other connected neighbor while still maintaining its density at constant value. As a spherical part of a cell…
Unlike their model membrane counterparts, biological membranes are richly decorated with a heterogeneous assembly of membrane proteins. These proteins are so tightly packed that their excluded area interactions can alter the free energy…
Space-saving design is a requirement that is encountered in biological systems and the development of modern technological devices alike. Many living organisms dynamically pack their polymer chains, filaments or membranes inside of…