Related papers: Modelling how curved active proteins and shear flo…

The motility of eukaryotic cells is strongly influenced by their environment, with confined cells often developing qualitatively different motility patterns from those migrating on simple two-dimensional substrates. Recent experiments,…

The mechanosensitivity of cells, which determines how they are able to respond to mechanical signals received from their environment, is crucial for the functioning of all biological systems. In experiments, cells placed on cyclically…

The migration behaviors of cancer cells are known to be heterogeneous. However, the interplay between the adhesion interactions, dynamical shape changes and fluid flows in regulating cell migration heterogeneity and plasticity during cancer…

There is increasing evidence that mammalian cells not only crawl on substrates but can also swim in fluids. To elucidate the mechanisms of the onset of motility of cells in suspension, a model which couples actin and myosin kinetics to…

We use the image solution technique to compute the leading order frequency-dependent self-mobility function of a small solid particle moving perpendicular to the surface of a spherical capsule whose membrane possesses shearing and bending…

Actin filaments, crosslinkers and myosin molecular motors form contractile networks. For instance, the cell cortex is a thin network below the cell membrane ; contraction of the cell cortex allows cells to round up during cell division.…

Adherent cells have long been known to display two modes during migration: a faster mode that is persistent in direction and a slower one where they turn. Compared to the persistent mode, the turns are less studied. Here we develop a simple…

Many cell membrane proteins that bind to actin form dynamic clusters driven by contractile flows generated by the actomyosin machinery at the cell cortex. Recent evidence suggests that a necessary condition for the generation of these…

The actin cortex is a thin layer of actin, myosin, and actin binding proteins that underlies the membrane of most animal cells. It is highly dynamic and can undergo remodelling on time-scales of tens of seconds thanks to protein turnover…

Suspensions of swimming micro-organisms provide examples of coordinated active dynamics. That has stimulated the study of a phenomenological theory combining synchronization and polar order in active matter. Here, we consider another…

Stick-slip motion, a common phenomenon observed during crawling of cells, is found to be strongly sensitive to the substrate stiffness. Stick-slip behaviours have previously been investigated typically using purely elastic substrates. For a…

We model the nonlinear response of a lubricated contact composed of a two-dimensional lipid membrane immersed in a simple fluid between two parallel flat and porous walls under shear. The nonlinear dynamics of the membrane gives rise to a…

Based on the thermodynamic variation to the free energy functional, we propose a sharp-interface model for simulating solid-state dewetting of thin films on rigid curved substrates in two dimensions. This model describes the interface…

We develop a model of amoeboid cell motility based on active gel theory. Modeling the motile apparatus of a eukaryotic cell as a confined layer of finite length of poroelastic active gel permeated by a solvent, we first show that, due to…

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…

We study the dynamics of a small solid particle arising from the dewetting of a thin film on a curved substrate driven by capillarity, where mass transport is controlled by surface diffusion. We consider the case when the size of the…

Protrusions at the leading-edge of a cell play an important role in sensing the extracellular cues, during cellular spreading and motility. Recent studies provided indications that these protrusions wrap (coil) around the extra-cellular…

Many fundamental biological processes are dependent on cellular migration. Although the mechanical mechanisms of single-cell migration are relatively well understood, those underlying migration of multiple cells adhered to each other in a…

In biological tissues, it is now well-understood that mechanical cues are a powerful mechanism for pattern regulation. While much work has focused on interactions between cells and external substrates, recent experiments suggest that cell…

Motility initiation in crawling cells requires transformation of a symmetric state into a polarized state. In contrast, motility arrest is associated with re-symmetrization of the internal configuration of a cell. Experiments on keratocytes…