Related papers: Active instability and nonlinear dynamics of cell-…
We develop a percolation model motivated by recent experimental studies of gels with active network remodeling by molecular motors. This remodeling was found to lead to a critical state reminiscent of random percolation (RP), but with a…
Cell crawling requires the generation of intracellular forces by the cytoskeleton and their transmission to an extracellular substrate through specific adhesion molecules. Crawling cells show many features of excitable systems, such as…
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…
The stability of a flexible fluid membrane containing a distribution of mobile, active proteins (e.g. proton pumps) is shown to depend on the structure and functional asymmetry of the proteins. A stable active membrane is in a…
Collective cell migration plays an essential role in various biological processes, such as development or cancer proliferation. While cell-cell interactions are clearly key determinants of collective cell migration -- in addition to…
While mechanobiology has demonstrated that precise control over mechanical properties at the whole-cell level is crucial for many biological functions, comparatively little attention has been paid to the intracellular mechanical properties.…
The construction of a network of cell-to-cell contacts makes it possible to characterize the patterns and spatial organisation of tissues. Such networks are highly dynamic, depending on the changes of the tissue architecture caused by cell…
The recent discovery of universal principles underlying many complex networks occurring across a wide range of length scales in the biological world has spurred physicists in trying to understand such features using techniques from…
We theoretically explore fluidization of epithelial tissues by active T1 neighbor exchanges. We show that the geometry of cell-cell junctions encodes important information about the local features of the energy landscape, which we support…
Dense monolayers of living cells display intriguing relaxation dynamics, reminiscent of soft and glassy materials close to the jamming transition, and migrate collectively when space is available, as in wound healing or in cancer invasion.…
Migratory and tissue resident cells exhibit highly branched morphologies to perform their function and to adapt to the microenvironment. Immune cells, for example, display transient branched shapes while exploring the surrounding tissues.…
Topological defects play a prominent role in the physics of two-dimensional materials. When driven out of equilibrium in active nematics, disclinations can acquire spontaneous self-propulsion and drive self-sustained flows upon…
Cells accomplish diverse functions using the same molecular building blocks, from setting up cytoplasmic flows to generating mechanical forces. In particular, transitions between these non-equilibrium states are triggered by regulating the…
Collective actuation in active solids, the spontaneous condensation of the dynamics on a few elastic modes, takes place whenever the deformations of the structure reorient the forces exerted by the active units composing, or embedded in,…
Collective cell migration plays a central role in tissue development, morphogenesis, wound repair and cancer progression. With the growing realization that physical forces mediate cell motility in development and physiology, a key…
We present a continuum model of the coupling between cells and substrate that accounts for some of the observed substrate-stiffness dependence of cell properties. The cell is modeled as an elastic active gel, adapting recently developed…
Dense, active systems show active turbulence, a state characterised by flow fields that are chaotic, with continually changing velocity jets and swirls. Here we review our current understanding of active turbulence. The development is…
Many complex networks are known to exhibit sudden transitions between alternative steady states with contrasting properties. Such a sudden transition demonstrates a network's resilience, which is the ability of a system to persist in the…
Following the financial crisis of 2007-2008, a deep analogy between the origins of instability in financial systems and complex ecosystems has been pointed out: in both cases, topological features of network structures influence how easily…
Multistability, the coexistence of multiple attractors in a dynamical system, is explored in bursting nerve cells. A modeling study is performed to show that a large class of bursting systems, as defined by a shared topology when…