Related papers: Learning the dynamics of cell-cell interactions in…
The dynamic interplay between collective cell movement and the various molecules involved in the accompanying cell signalling mechanisms plays a crucial role in many biological processes including normal tissue development and pathological…
By modifying and calibrating an active vertex model to experiments, we have simulated numerically a confluent cellular monolayer spreading on an empty space and the collision of two monolayers of different cells in an antagonistic migration…
Many cell types display random motility on two-dimensional substrates, but crawl persistently in a single direction when confined in a microchannel or on an adhesive micropattern. Does this imply that the motility mechanism of confined…
Many biological processes are supported by special molecules, called motor proteins or molecular motors, that transport cellular cargoes along linear protein filaments and can reversibly associate to their tracks. Stimulated by these…
Mechanical forces influence the development and behavior of biological tissues. In many situations these forces are exerted or resisted by elastic compliant structures such as the own-tissue cellular matrix or other surrounding tissues.…
Living cells respond to mechanical changes in the matrix surrounding them by applying contractile forces that are in turn transmitted to distant cells. We calculate the mechanical work that each cell performs in order to deform the matrix,…
Cells self-organize into functional, ordered structures during tissue morphogenesis, a process that is evocative of colloidal self-assembly into engineered soft materials. Understanding how inter-cellular mechanical interactions may drive…
We present a stochastic model which describes fronts of cells invading a wound. In the model cells can move, proliferate, and experience cell-cell adhesion. We find several qualitatively different regimes of front motion and analyze the…
Collective motion of cells is common in many physiological processes, including tissue development, repair, and tumor formation. Recent experiments have shown that certain malignant cancer cells form clusters in a chemoattractant gradient,…
Stick-slip motion, a common phenomenon observed during crawling of cells, is found to be strongly sensitive to the substrate stiffness. Stick-slip behaviours have previously been investigated typically using purely elastic substrates. For a…
Understanding to what extent stem cell potential is a cell-intrinsic property, or an emergent behavior coming from global tissue dynamics and geometry, is a key outstanding question of systems and stem cell biology. Here, we propose a…
The organization of live cells into tissues and their subsequent biological function involves inter-cell mechanical interactions, which are mediated by their elastic environment. To model this interaction, we consider cells as spherical…
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…
Contact inhibition plays a crucial role in the motility of cells, the process of wound healing, and the formation of tumors. By mimicking the mechanical motion of calls crawling on a substrate using a pseudopod, we constructed a minimal…
Contact inhibition limits migration and proliferation of cells in cell colonies. We consider a multiphase field model to investigate the growth dynamics of a cell colony, composed of proliferating cells. The model takes into account the…
Understanding cellular response to mechanical forces is immensely important for a plethora of biological processes. Focal adhesions are multi-molecular protein assemblies that connect the cell to the extracellular matrix and play a pivotal…
Cancer cells exhibit increased motility and proliferation, which are instrumental in the formation of tumours and metastases. These pathological changes can be traced back to malfunctions of cellular signalling pathways, and calcium…
Biological cells in soft materials can be modeled as anisotropic force contraction dipoles. The corresponding elastic interaction potentials are long-ranged ($\sim 1/r^3$ with distance $r$) and depend sensitively on elastic constants,…
Living tissue is able to withstand large stresses in everyday life, yet it also actively adapts to dynamic loads. This remarkable mechanical behaviour emerges from the interplay between living cells and their non-living extracellular…
Cells often migrate on curved surfaces inside the body, such as curved tissues, blood vessels or highly curved protrusions of other cells. Recent \textit{in-vitro} experiments provide clear evidence that motile cells are affected by the…