Related papers: Extending the analogy between intracellular motion…
Recent work on particle-based models of tissues has suggested that any finite rate of cell division and cell death is sufficient to fluidize an epithelial tissue. At the same time, experimental evidence has indicated the existence of glassy…
Dynamics is central to living systems. In the last two decades, experiments have revealed that the dynamics in diverse biological systems - from intracellular cytoplasm to cellular and organismal aggregates - are remarkably similar to that…
We introduce a generic, purely mechanical model for environment sensitive motion of mammalian cells that is applicable to chemotaxis, haptotaxis, and durotaxis as modes of motility. It is able to theoretically explain all relevant…
Recent observations demonstrate that densely packed tissues exhibit features of glassy dynamics, such as caging behavior and dynamical heterogeneities, although it has remained unclear how single-cell properties control this behavior. Here…
Despite the enormous theoretical and application interests, a fundamental understanding of the glassy dynamics remains elusive. The static properties of glassy and ordinary liquids are similar, but their dynamics are dramatically different.…
Many biological tissues are viscoelastic, behaving as elastic solids on short timescales and fluids on long timescales. This collective mechanical behavior enables and helps to guide pattern formation and tissue layering. Here we…
Glassy dynamics in active biological cells remain a subject of debate, as cellular activity rarely slows enough for true glassy features to emerge. In this study, we address this paradox of glassy dynamics in epithelial cells by integrating…
Densely packed, motile bacteria can adopt collective states not seen in conventional, passive materials. These states remain in many ways mysterious, and their physical characterization can aid our understanding of natural bacterial…
Cell motion inside dense tissues governs many biological processes, including embryonic development and cancer metastasis, and recent experiments suggest that these tissues exhibit collective glassy behavior. To make quantitative…
Motile cilia are a striking example of functional cellular organelle, conserved across all the eukaryotic species. Motile cilia allow swimming of cells and small organisms and transport of liquids across epithelial tissues. Whilst the…
Active diffusion of intracellular components is emerging as an important process in cell biology. This process is mediated by complex assemblies of molecular motors and cytoskeletal filaments that drive force generation in the cytoplasm and…
As wounds heal, embryos develop, cancer spreads, or asthma progresses, the cellular monolayer undergoes glass transition between solid-like jammed and fluid-like flowing states. During some of these processes, the cells undergo an…
Cell neighbor exchanges are integral to tissue rearrangements in biology, including development and repair. Often these processes occur via topological T1 transitions analogous to those observed in foams, grains and colloids. However, in…
The more we learn about the cytoplasm of cells, the more we realise that the cytoplasm is not uniform but instead is highly inhomogeneous. In any inhomogeneous solution, there are concentration gradients, and particles move either up or…
Cell migration is important in many biological processes, including embryonic development, cancer metastasis, and wound healing. In these tissues, a cell's motion is often strongly constrained by its neighbors, leading to glassy dynamics.…
Molecular motors perform active movements along cytoskeletal filaments and drive the traffic of organelles and other cargo particles in cells. In contrast to the macroscopic traffic of cars, however, the traffic of molecular motors is…
Recent experiments have revealed that cytoplasms become glassy when their metabolism is suppressed, while they maintain fluidity in a living state. The mechanism of this active fluidization is not clear, especially for bacterial cytoplasms,…
Locomotion is essential for living cells. It enables bacteria and algae to explore space for food, cancer to spread, and immune system to fight infections. Motile cells display trajectories of intriguing complexity, from regular (e.g.…
Bacterial assemblies exhibit rich collective behaviors that control their biological functions, making them a relevant object of study from an active matter physics perspective. Dense bacterial suspensions self-organize into distinct…
Diffusion of tracer particles in the cytoplasm of mammalian cells is often anomalous with a marked heterogeneity even within individual particle trajectories. Despite considerable efforts, the mechanisms behind these observations have…