Related papers: Local Nonlinear Elastic Response of Extracellular …

We report detailed theoretical investigations of the micro-mechanics and bulk elastic properties of composites consisting of randomly distributed stiff fibers embedded in an elastic matrix in two and three dimensions. Recent experiments…

Buckling plays a critical role in the transport and dynamics of elastic microfilaments in Stokesian fluids. However, previous work has only considered filaments with homogeneous structural properties. Filament backbone stiffness can be…

Partial localization is the phenomenon of self-aggregation of mass into high-density structures that are thin in one direction and extended in the others. We give a detailed study of an energy functional that arises in a simplified model…

Athermal models of disordered fibrous networks are highly useful for studying the mechanics of elastic networks composed of stiff biopolymers. The underlying network architecture is a key aspect that can affect the elastic properties of…

Collagen networks provide the main structural component of most tissues and represent an important ingredient for bio-mimetic materials for bio-medical applications. Here we study the mechanical properties of stiff collagen networks derived…

Recent studies in mammalian hearts show that left ventricular wall thickening is an important mechanism for systolic ejection and that during contraction the cardiac muscle develops significant stresses in the muscular cross-fiber…

The elastic properties of a self-assembled bilayer membrane are studied using the self-consistent field theory, applied to a model system composed of flexible amphiphilic chains dissolved in hydrophilic polymeric solvents. Examining the…

Cell migration in fibreous extracellular matrix (ECM) is crucial to many physiological and pathological processes such as tissue regeneration, immune response and cancer progression. During migration, individual cells can generate active…

In this study we investigate computationally tumour-oncolytic virus(OV) interactions that take place within a heterogeneous ExtraCellular Matrix (ECM). The ECM is viewed as a mixture of two constitutive phases, namely a fibre phase and a…

We present a theoretical framework for the linear and nonlinear visco-elastic properties of reversibly crosslinked networks of semiflexible polymers. In contrast to affine models where network strain couples to the polymer end-to-end…

Many active systems display nematic order, while interacting with their environment. In this work, we show theoretically how environment-stored memory acts an effective external field that aligns active nematics. The coupling to the…

A quantitative understanding of how cells interact with their extracellular matrix via molecular bonds is fundamental for many important processes in cell biology and engineering. In these interactions, the deformability of cells and matrix…

The longitudinal response of single semiflexible polymers to sudden changes in externally applied forces is known to be controlled by the propagation and relaxation of backbone tension. Under many experimental circumstances, realized, e.g.,…

Measurements with an atomic force microscope (AFM) offer a direct way to probe elastic properties of lipid bilayer membranes locally: provided the underlying stress-strain relation is known, material parameters such as surface tension or…

We made a link between Extra Cellular Matrix (ECM) plasticity and the morphologi cal changes in synapses after synaptic excitation. A recent study by Zhang et al \cite{zhang} showed tha t transmembrane voltage causes movement of the cell…

The classical flexure problem of non-linear incompressible elasticity is revisited for elastic materials whose mechanical response is different in tension and compression---the so-called bimodular materials. The flexure problem is chosen to…

Curved beams are basic structural components of Nano-Electro-Mechanical-Sistems (NEMS) whose design requires appropriate modelling of scale effects. In the present paper, the size-dependent static behaviour of curved elastic nano-beams is…

We study a minimal extension of the worm-like chain to describe polypeptides having alpha-helical secondary structure. In this model presence/absence of secondary structure enters as a scalar variable that controls the local chain bending…

Optimal characterization of the mechanical properties of both cells and their surrounding is an issue of major interest. Indeed, cell function and development are strongly influenced by external stimuli. Furthermore, a change in cell…

Cells within living soft biological tissues seem to promote the maintenance of a mechanical state within a defined range near a so-called set-point. This mechanobiological process is often referred to as mechanical homeostasis. During this…