Related papers: Active liquid crystals powered by force-sensing DN…
Living cells exhibit a complex organization comprising numerous compartments, among which are RNA- and protein-rich membraneless, liquid-like organelles known as biomolecular condensates. Energy-consuming processes regulate their formation…
"Active nematics" are orientationally ordered but apolar fluids composed of interacting constituents individually powered by an internal source of energy. When activity exceeds a system-size dependent threshold, spatially uniform active…
We study a model of an active gel of cross-linked semiflexible filaments with additional active linkers such as myosin II clusters. We show that the coupling of the elasticity of the semiflexible filaments to the mechanical properties of…
Single molecular motor kinesin harnesses thermal and non-thermal fluctuations to transport various cargoes along microtubules, converting chemical energy to directed movements. To describe the non-thermal fluctuations generated by the…
The bending of cilia and flagella is driven by forces generated by dynein motor proteins. These forces slide adjacent microtubule doublets within the axoneme, the motile cytoskeletal structure. To create regular, oscilla- tory beating…
While most chemical bonds weaken under the action of mechanical force (called slip bond behavior), nature has developed bonds that do the opposite: their lifetime increases as force is applied. While such catch bonds have been studied quite…
The spontaneous creation of disclinations is a defining characteristic of active nematics, which is rarely observed in equilibrium systems or other active matter systems. Thus, understanding the mechanics of disclinations is crucial for…
Computer simulations can aid in understanding how collective materials properties emerge from interactions between simple constituents. Here, we introduce a coarse-grained model that enables simulation of networks of actin filaments, myosin…
Fluid-structure interactions between active and passive components are important for many biological systems to function. A particular example is chromatin in the cell nucleus, where ATP-powered processes drive coherent motions of the…
We present a generic coarse-grained model to describe molecular motors acting on polymer substrates, mimicking, for example, RNA polymerase on DNA or kinesin on microtubules. The polymer is modeled as a connected chain of beads; motors are…
Active nematics, in their pure form, have demonstrated a plethora of dynamic and steady state behaviors, including large-scale dynamic structures, collective flows, and intricate multi-spatial temporal dynamics. This complexity further…
Active matter comprises individual units that convert energy into mechanical motion. In many examples, such as bacterial systems and biofilament assays, constituent units are elongated and can give rise to local nematic orientational order.…
Cellular cargo can be bound to cytoskeletal filaments by one or multiple active or passive molecular motors. Recent experiments have shown that the presence of auxiliary, nondriving motors, results in an enhanced processivity of the cargo,…
We present a simple model for the bidirectional dynamics of actin bundles with alternating polarities in gliding assays with non-processive myosin motors. In the model, the bundle is represented as an elastic chain consisting of monomers…
Actin flow in the cortical cytoskeleton underneath the cell membrane generates mechanical stresses that shape the cell surface. We study this mechanism using a hydrodynamic model of a compressible active gel polymerizing at the membrane and…
Sliding is one of the fundamental mechanical movements in machinery. In macroscopic systems, double-rack pinion machines employ gears to slide two linear tracks along opposite directions. In microscopic systems, kinesin-5 proteins crosslink…
We consider how active forces modeled as non-thermal random noise affect the average dynamical properties of a Rouse polymer. As the power spectrum of the noise is not known we keep the analytical treatment as generic as possible and then…
Dynamics of small particles, both living such as swimming bacteria and inanimate, such as colloidal spheres, has fascinated scientists for centuries. If one could learn how to control and streamline their chaotic motion, that would open…
Functionalizing colloids with reactive DNA linkers is a versatile way of programming self-assembly. DNA selectivity provides direct control over colloid-colloid interactions allowing the engineering of structures such as complex crystals or…
The behavior of mobile linkers connecting two semi-flexible charged polymers, such as polyvalent counterions connecting DNA or F-actin chains, is studied theoretically. The chain bending rigidity induces an effective repulsion between…