Related papers: Cell response in free-packed granular systems
Recent biological experiments have shown that certain types of cells are able to move in structured and confined environment even without the activation of focal adhesion. Focusing on this particular phenomenon and based on previous works,…
Due to the potential applications in biomedical engineering, it becomes more and more important to understand the process of engulfment and internalization of nanoparticles (NPs) by cell membranes. Despite the fact that the interaction…
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…
In this work the computer modeling has been used to show that longer ligands allow biological cells (e.g., blood platelets) to withstand stronger flows after their adhesion to solid walls. Mechanistic model of polymer-mediated…
Living tissue is able to withstand large stresses in everyday life, yet it also actively adapts to dynamic loads. This remarkable mechanical behaviour emerges from the interplay between living cells and their non-living extracellular…
Crawling cell motility is vital to many biological processes such as wound healing and the immune response. Using a minimal model we investigate the effects of patterned substrate adhesiveness and biophysical cell parameters on the…
Microrheology, the study of fluids on micron length-scales, promises to reveal insights into cellular biology, including mechanical biomarkers of disease and the interplay between biomechanics and cellular function. Here a…
Bacterial cellulose biofilms are complex networks of strong interwoven nanofibers that control transport and protect bacterial colonies in the film. Design of diverse applications of bacterial cellulose films also relies on understanding…
Physical experiments can characterize the elastic response of granular materials in terms of macroscopic state-variables, namely volume (packing) fraction and stress, while the microstructure is not accessible and thus neglected. Here, by…
Molecular adhesion plays a central role in many biological systems, yet existing methods to quantify adhesive strength often struggle to bridge the gap between single-molecule resolution and biologically relevant environments. Here, we…
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…
The friction and adhesion between elastic bodies are strongly influenced by the roughness of the surfaces in contact. Here we develop a multiscale molecular dynamics approach to contact mechanics, which can be used also when the surfaces…
Understanding interactions between microparticles and lipid membranes is of increasing importance, especially for unraveling the influence of microplastics on our health and environment. Here, we study how a short-ranged adhesive force…
The study of cells' dynamical properties is essential to a better understanding of several physiological processes. These properties are directly associated with cells' mechanical parameters experimentally achieved through physical stress.…
Intermolecular forces are known to precipitate adhesion events between solid bodies. Inspired by a macro-scale experiment showing the hysteretic adhesion of a piece of flexible tape over a plastic substrate, we develop here a model of…
In the absence of environmental cues, a migrating cell performs an isotropic random motion. Recently, the breaking of this isotropy has been observed when cells move in the presence of asymmetric adhesive patterns. However, up to now the…
The structure and degree of order in soft matter and other materials is intimately connected to the nature of the interactions between the particles. One important research goal is to find suitable control mechanisms, to enhance or suppress…
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…
Living cells presumably employ optimized information transfer methods, enabling efficient communication even in noisy environments. As expected, the efficiency of chemical communications between cells depends on the properties of the…
Motivated by recent experiments showing the buckling of microtubules in cells, we study theoretically the mechanical response of, and force propagation along elastic filaments embedded in a non-linear elastic medium. We find that, although…