Related papers: A computational framework for modeling cell-matrix…
Nonlinearities and instabilities in mechanical structures have shown great promise for embedding advanced functionalities. However, simulating structures subject to nonlinearities can be challenging due to the complexity of their behavior,…
Thin-walled structures clamped by friction joints, such as aircraft skin panels are exposed to bending-stretching coupling and frictional contact. We propose an original sub-structuring approach, where the system is divided into thin-walled…
Contractile forces are essential for many developmental processes involving cell shape change and tissue deformation. Recent experiments on reconstituted actomyosin networks, the major component of the contractile machinery, have shown that…
The mammalian cell membrane is embedded with biomolecular condensates of protein and lipid clusters, which interact with an underlying viscoelastic cytoskeleton network to organize the cell surface and mechanically interact with the…
Biological systems, with many interacting components, face high-dimensional environmental fluctuations, ranging from diverse nutrient deprivations to toxins, drugs, and physical stresses. Yet, many biological control mechanisms are `simple'…
Interaction of electric fields with biological cells is indispensable for many physiological processes. Thermal electrical noise in the cellular environment has long been considered as the minimum threshold for detection of electrical…
Both animal and plant tissue exhibit a nonlinear rheological phenomenon known as compression stiffening, or an increase in moduli with increasing uniaxial compressive strain. Does such a phenomenon exist in single cells, which are the…
Cell blebs are protrusions of the cell membrane and can be instrumental for cell migration. We derive a continuum model for the mechanical and geometrical aspects of the onset of blebbing in terms of a force balance. It is abstract and…
In order to grasp the features arising from cellular discreteness and individuality, in large parts of cell tissue modelling agent-based models are favoured. The subclass of off-lattice models allows for a physical motivation of the…
The dynamics of cellular pattern formation is crucial for understanding embryonic development and tissue morphogenesis. Recent studies have shown that human dermal fibroblasts cultured on liquid crystal elastomers can exhibit an increase in…
In articular cartilage the orientation of collagen fibres is not uniform, varying mostly with the depth on the tissue. Besides, the biomechanical response of each layer of the articular cartilage differs from the neighbouring ones, evolving…
This work presents the development, analysis and numerical simulations of a biophysical model for 3D cell deformation and movement, which couples biochemical reactions and biomechanical forces. We propose a mechanobiochemical model which…
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…
While it is commonly observed that the shape dynamics of mammalian cells can undergo large random fluctuations, theoretical models aiming at capturing cell mechanics often focus on the deterministic part of the motion. In this paper, we…
Constructing physical models of living cells and tissues is an extremely challenging task because of the high complexities of both intra- and intercellular processes. In addition, the force that a single cell generates vanishes in total due…
Tissue engineering aims to grow artificial tissues \emph{in vitro} to replace those in the body that have been damaged through age, trauma or disease. A recent approach to engineer artificial cartilage involves seeding cells within a…
We study the mechanics of a reversible decohesion (unzipping) of an elastic layer subjected to quasi-static end-point loading. At the micro level the system is simulated by an elastic chain of particles interacting with a rigid foundation…
There has been increasing experimental evidence of non-affine elastic deformation mechanisms in biological soft tissues. These observations call for novel constitutive models which are able to describe the dominant underlying…
The understanding of morphogenesis in living organisms has been renewed by tremendous progressin experimental techniques that provide access to cell-scale, quantitative information both on theshapes of cells within tissues and on the genes…
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,…