Related papers: Tissue fluidization by cell-shape-controlled activ…
Recent experimental observations have suggested that topological defects can facilitate the creation of sharp features in developing embryos. Whereas these observations echo established knowledge about the interplay between geometry and…
The persistent dynamics in systems out of equilibrium, particularly those characterized by annihilation and creation of topological defects, is known to involve complicated spatiotemporal processes and is deemed difficult to control. Here…
The behaviour and fate of tissue cells is controlled by the rigidity and geometry of their adhesive environment, possibly through forces localized to sites of adhesion. We introduce a mechanical model that predicts cellular force…
We introduce a novel model, comprising self-avoiding surfaces and incorporating edges and tubules, that is designed to characterize the structural morphologies and transitions observed within the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). By employing…
Topological and geometrical properties and the associated topological defects find a rapidly growing interest in studying the interplay between mechanics and the collective behavior of cells on the tissue level. We here test if well studied…
Living organisms have mastered the dynamic control of internal stresses to perform an array of functions, such as change shape and locomote. State-of-the-art attempts to replicate this ability in synthetic materials are rudimentary in…
Building on the striking similarity between the structure of the spindle during mitosis in living cells and nematic textures in confined liquid crystals, we use a continuum model of two-dimensional nematic liquid crystal droplets, to…
Active systems, from bacterial suspensions to cellular monolayers, are continuously driven out of equilibrium by local injection of energy from their constituent elements and exhibit turbulent-like and chaotic patterns. Here we demonstrate…
Morphogenesis of living systems involves topological shape transformations which are highly unusual in the inanimate world. Here we demonstrate that a droplet of a nematic liquid crystal changes its equilibrium shape from a simply-connected…
We study the flow behavior and unjamming transition in dense assemblies of actively deforming particles that periodically change size, a process that we refer to as breathing. Using extensive molecular dynamics simulations and a…
We apply a recently developed model of cytoskeletal force generation to study a cell intrinsic contractility, as well as its response to external loading. The model is based on a non-equilibrium thermodynamic treatment of the…
This work probes the role of cell geometry in orienting self-organized fluid flows in the late stage Drosophila oocyte. Recent theoretical work has shown that a model, which relies only on hydrodynamic interactions of flexible, cortically…
Quasistatic simple shearing flow of random monodisperse soap froth is investigated by analyzing Surface Evolver simulations of spatially periodic foams. Elastic-plastic behavior is caused by irreversible topological rearrangements (T1s)…
The development of traction-force microscopy, in the past two decades, has created the unprecedented opportunity of performing direct mechanical measurements on living cells as they adhere or crawl on uniform or micro-patterned substrates.…
Motor-proteins are responsible for transport inside cells. Harnessing their activity is key towards developing new nano-technologies, or functional biomaterials. Cytoskeleton-like networks, recently tailored in vitro, result from the…
A fundamental question in biology is to understand how patterns and shapes emerge from the collective interplay of large numbers of cells. Cells forming two-dimensional epithelial tissues behave as active materials that undergo remodeling…
Cells exert traction forces on compliant substrates and can induce surface instabilities that appear as characteristic wrinkling patterns. Here, we develop a mechanical description of cell-induced wrinkling on soft substrates using a thin…
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,…
We study the interplay of activity, order and flow through a set of coarse-grained equations governing the hydrodynamic velocity, concentration and stress fields in a suspension of active, energy-dissipating particles. We make several…
Nonlinearities in constitutive equations of extended objects in shear flow lead to novel phenomena, {\it e.g.} "rheochaos" in solutions of wormlike micelles and "elastic turbulence" in polymer solutions. Since both phenomena involve…