Related papers: Clustering of lipids driven by integrin
Cell shape changes, essential for processes such as motility or division, are controlled by the actomyosin cortex that actively remodels biological membranes. Their mechanisms can be deciphered in___vitro using biomimetic reconstituted…
The actin cytoskeleton is a key component in the machinery of eukaryotic cells, and it selfassembles out of equilibrium into a wide variety of biologically crucial structures. While the molecular mechanisms involved are well characterized,…
We propose a novel mechanism of cell motility, which relies on the coupling of actin polymerization at the cell membrane to geometric confinement. We consider a polymerizing viscoelastic cytoskeletal gel confined in a narrow channel, and…
Dynamical clustering represents a characteristic feature of active matter consisting of self-propelled agents that convert energy from the environment into mechanical motion. At the micron scale, typical of overdamped dynamics, particles…
Phagocytosis is the process of engulfment and internalization of comparatively large particles by the cell, that plays a central role in the functioning of our immune system. We study the process of phagocytosis by considering a simplified…
Collective cell migration is crucial in many biological processes such as wound healing, tissue morphogenesis, and tumor progression. The leading front of a collective migrating epithelial cell layer often destabilizes into multicellular…
The aggregation or clustering of proteins and other macromolecules plays an important role in the formation of large-scale molecular assemblies within cell membranes. Examples include lipid rafts and postsynaptic domains (PSDs). PSDs are…
Actomyosin actively generates contractile forces that provide the plasma membrane with the deformation stresses essential to carry out biological processes. Although the contractile property of purified actomyosin has been extensively…
The endoplasmic reticulum (ER), a cellular organelle that forms a cell-spanning network of tubes and sheets, is an important location of protein synthesis and folding. When the ER experiences sustained unfolded protein stress, IRE1 proteins…
Phagocytosis is a fundamental process of the innate immune system, yet the physical determinants that govern the engulfment of soft, deformable targets remain poorly understood. Existing theoretical models typically approximate targets as…
Non-equilibrium cluster-cluster aggregation of particles diffusing in or at the cell membrane has been hypothesized to lead to domains of finite size in different biological contexts such as lipid rafts, cell adhesion complexes, or…
Constancy of life vitally depends on the internalization of particles through biomembranes. Of particular interest, cellular uptake, including phagocytosis, receptor-mediated endocytosis, and membrane fusion, critically depends on the…
Membrane wrapping underlies nanoparticle uptake during endocytosis, whereas the reverse process of membrane unwrapping accompanies particle expulsion and membrane fusion events. Existing theoretical descriptions typically focus on adhesion…
The experimental use of micropatterned quasi-1D substrates has emerged as an useful experimental tool to study the nature of cell-cell interactions and gain insight on collective behaviour of cell colonies. Inspired by these experiments, we…
Cytoskeletal networks, which are essentially motor-filament assemblies, play a major role in many developmental processes involving structural remodeling and shape changes. These are achieved by nonequilibrium self-organization processes…
Membrane proteins often form dimers and higher-order oligomers whose stability and spatial organization depend sensitively on their lipid environment. To investigate the physical principles underlying this coupling, we employ a lattice…
The interface dynamics of a 3D cell immersed in a 3D extracellular matrix is investigated. We suggest a 3D generalization of a known 2D minimal phase field model suggested in [1] for the description of keratocyte motility. Our model…
Neovascularisation is essential for tissue development and regeneration, in addition to playing a key role in pathological settings such as ischemia and tumour development. Experimental findings in the past two decades have led to the…
Clathrin-mediated endocytosis is the main pathway used by eukaryotic cells to take up extracellular material, but the dominant physical mechanisms driving this process are still elusive. Recently several high-resolution imaging techniques…
Many of the processes that underly neural computation are carried out by ion channels embedded in the plasma membrane, a two-dimensional liquid that surrounds all cells. Recent experiments have demonstrated that this membrane is poised…