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Propelling microorganisms through fluids and moving fluids along cellular surfaces are essential biological functions accomplished by long, thin structures called motile cilia and flagella, whose regular, oscillatory beating breaks the…
Connecting cell behavior to tissue shape and mechanics is a key challenge in the physics of morphogenesis. Cytoskeletal turnover precludes a fixed reference state, and tensions are actively generated independently of strain; so conventional…
We present direct measurements of fluctuations in the nucleus of yeast cells. While prior work has shown these fluctuations to be active and non-thermal in character, their origin and time dependence are not understood. We show that the…
Cell alignment often forms nematic order, which can lead to anomalous collective cell flow due to the so-called active force. Although it is appreciated that cell migration is driven by traction force, a quantitative evaluation of the…
How do topological defects affect the degree of order in active matter? To answer this question we investigate an agent-based model of self-propelled particles, which accounts for polar alignment and short-ranged repulsive interactions. For…
We consider the dynamics and thermodynamics of a pair of magnetic dipoles interacting via their magnetic fields. We consider only the "spin" degrees of freedom; the dipoles are fixed in space. With this restriction it is possible to provide…
Actin is a globular protein which forms long filaments in the eukaryotic cytoskeleton, whose roles in cell function include structural support, contractile activity to intracellular signalling. We model actin filaments as two chains of…
Tangentially driven active polymers (TDAPs), model systems for motor-driven filaments, have been extensively studied in uniform activity fields. Here, we show that an activity gradient breaks fore-aft symmetry, generating net body forces…
We propose a mechanism of cell motility which is based on contraction and does not require protrusion. The contraction driven translocation of a cell is due to internal flow of the cytoskeleton generated by molecular motors. Each motor…
The enzyme FoF1-ATP synthase provides the 'chemical energy currency' adenosine triphosphate (ATP) for living cells. Catalysis is driven by mechanochemical coupling of subunit rotation within the enzyme with conformational changes in the…
Interaction of electric fields with biological cells is indispensable for many physiological processes. Thermal electrical noise in the cellular environment has long been considered as the minimum threshold for detection of electrical…
Active matter is rapidly becoming a key paradigm of out-of-equilibrium soft matter exhibiting complex collective phenomena, yet the thermodynamics of such systems remain poorly understood. In this letter we study the nonequilbrium…
Equilibrating proteins and other biomacromolecules is cardinal for molecular dynamics simulation of such biological systems in which they perform free dynamics without any externally-applied mechanical constraint, until thermodynamic…
Convergent extension of epithelial tissue is a key motif of animal morphogenesis. On a coarse scale, cell motion resembles laminar fluid flow; yet in contrast to a fluid, epithelial cells adhere to each other and maintain the tissue layer…
The nucleotides ATP and ADP regulate many aspects of endothelial cell (EC) biology, including intracellular calcium concentrations, focal adhesion activation, cytoskeletal organization, and cellular motility. In vivo, ECs are constantly…
Thermodynamic criticality describes emergent phenomena in a wide variety of complex systems. In the mammalian brain, the complex dynamics that spontaneously emerge from neuronal interactions have been characterized as neuronal avalanches, a…
Molecular motors play pivotal roles in organizing the interior of cells. A motor efficient in cargo transport would move along cytoskeletal filaments with a high speed and a minimal error in transport distance (or time) while consuming a…
Animal morphogenesis often involves significant shape changes of epithelial tissue sheets. Great progress has been made in understanding the underlying cellular driving forces and their coordination through biomechanical feedback loops.…
Synchronization of actively oscillating organelles such as cilia and flagella facilitates self-propulsion of cells and pumping fluid in low Reynolds number environments. To understand the key mechanism behind synchronization induced by…
With their unique combination of characteristics - an energy density almost 100 times that of human muscle, and a power density of 5.3 kW/kg, similar to a jet engine's output - Nylon artificial muscles stand out as particularly apt for…