Related papers: How does the extracellular matrix affect the rigid…
We investigate the elasticity of unsupported epithelial monolayer and we discover that unlike a thin solid plate, which wrinkles if geometrically incompatible with the underlying substrate, the epithelium may do so even in absence of the…
Many processes in eukaryotic cells, including cell motility, rely on the growth of branched actin networks from surfaces. Despite its central role the mechano-chemical coupling mechanisms which guide the growth process are poorly…
Biological soft tissues exhibit elastic properties which can be dramatically different from rubber-type materials (elastomers). To gain a better understanding of the role of constitutive relationships in determining material responses under…
In this paper, we study the boundary effect on the surface (or frame) tension of elastic membrane surface models. The frame tension generally depends only on the projected area of the boundary over which the surface spans. However, from a…
The two approaches to analyzing the large strain behavior of rubbery networks are phenomenologically, using strain energy functions drawn from continuum mechanics, and molecular models, which apply statistical mechanics to compute the…
The mechanical performance of reinforced composites is strongly influenced at different scales by the stress transferred at the matrix-fibre interfaces and at any surface where material discontinuity occurs. In particular, the mechanical…
The rheological properties of biological tissues are core to processes such as cancer metastasis, wound healing and embryo development. The emergence of tissue and organ structures during morphogenesis requires the precise formation of…
As the cover of embryos and adult organisms, epithelial tissues are subjected to substantial mechanical forces in tissue morphogenesis. However, the finite deformation behaviors of epithelial tissues remain largely unexplored. This study…
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…
We investigate a continuum mechanical model for an adherent cell on two dimensional adhesive micropatterned substrates. The cell is modeled as an isotropic and homogeneous elastic material subject to uniform internal contractile stresses.…
Athermal (i.e. zero-temperature) under-constrained systems are typically floppy, but they can be rigidified by the application of external strain, which is theoretically well understood. Here and in the companion paper, we extend this…
The motility of a cell can be triggered or inhibited not only by an applied force but also by a mechanically neutral force couple. This type of loading, represented by an applied stress and commonly interpreted as either squeezing or…
Deformation due to embedded fluidic networks is currently studied in the context of soft-actuators and soft-robotics. Expanding on this concept, beams can be designed so that the pressure in the channel-network is created directly from…
After injury, if regeneration can be observed in hydra, planaria and some vertebrates, regeneration is rare in mammals and particularly in humans. In this paper, we investigate the mechanisms by which biological tissues recover after…
The mechanics of epithelial tissues, which is governed by forces generated in various cell domains, is often investigated using two-dimensional models that account for the apically-positioned actomyosin structures but neglect basolateral…
The influence of an electric field on a poorly conductive membrane such as a lipid bilayer is studied theoretically. The unbalanced electric stress created by an ionic current across a non-perfectly flat membrane gives rise to a…
Chain molecules play important roles in industry and in living cells. Our focus here is on distinct ways of modeling the stiffness inherent in a chain molecule. We consider three types of stiffnesses -- one yielding an energy penalty for…
Through modelling and simulations we show that material instabilities play a dominant role in the mechanical behavior of the fibrous collagen Extracellular Matrix (ECM), as observed when the ECM is deformed by contractile biological cells.…
Spin spirals form inside the magnetic layers of antiferromagnetic and noncollinearly-coupled magnetic multilayers in the presence of an external magnetic field. This spin structure can be modeled to extract the direct exchange stiffness of…
During the development of an organism, cells must coordinate and organize to generate the correct shape, structure, and spatial patterns of tissues and organs, a process known as morphogenesis. The morphogenesis of embryonic tissues is…