Related papers: Excitable dynamics driven by mechanical feedback i…
The mechanics of cells is strongly affected by molecular motors that generate forces in the cellular cytoskeleton. We develop a model for cytoskeletal networks driven out of equilibrium by molecular motors exerting transient contractile…
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…
From cytoskeletal networks to tissues, many biological systems behave as active materials. Their composition and stress-generation is affected by chemical reaction networks. In such systems, the coupling between mechanics and chemistry…
Cells and tissues change shape both to carry out their function and during pathology. In most cases, these deformations are driven from within the systems themselves. This is permitted by a range of molecular actors, such as active…
Mechanical stresses stemming from environmental factors are a key determinant of cellular behavior and physiology. Yet, the role of self-induced biomechanical stresses in growing bacterial colonies has remained largely unexplored. Here, we…
Excitable waves arise in many spatially-extended systems of either biological, chemical, or physical nature due to the interplay between local reaction and diffusion processes. Here we demonstrate that similar phenomena are encoded in the…
Cardiac myocytes are the fundamental cells composing the heart muscle. The propagation of electric signals and chemical quantities through them is responsible for their nonlinear contraction and dilatation. In this study, a theoretical…
Biological systems perform an astonishing array of dynamical processes -- including development and repair, regulation, behavior and motor control, sensing and signaling, and adaptation, among others. Powered by the transduction of stored…
Motility is characteristic of life, but a common basis for movement has remained to be identified. Diverse systems in motion shift between two states depending on interactions that turnover at the rate of an applied cycle of force. Although…
When the motion of a motile cell is observed closely, it appears erratic, and yet the combination of nonequilibrium forces and surfaces can produce striking examples of organization in microbial systems. While most of our current…
We formulate general rules for a coarse-graining of the dynamics, which we term `symbolic dynamics', of feedback networks with monotone interactions, such as most biological modules. Networks which are more complex than simple cyclic…
Recent observations of beating signals in the excitation energy transfer dynamics of photosynthetic complexes have been interpreted as evidence for sustained coherences that are sufficiently long-lived for energy transport and coherence to…
The response of cell populations to external stimuli plays a central role in biological mechanical processes such as epithelial wound healing and developmental morphogenesis. Wave-like propagation of a signal of ERK MAP kinase has been…
In complex systems, groups of interacting objects may form prevalent and persistent spatiotemporal patterns, which we refer to as motifs. These motifs can exhibit features that reveal how individual objects interact with one another.…
Excitable media are prevalent models for describing physical, chemical, and biological systems which support wave propagation. In this letter, we show that the time evolution of the medium state at the wave fronts can be determined by…
Feedback loops are essential for regulating cell proliferation and maintaining the delicate balance between cell division and cell death. Thanks to the exact solution of a few simple models of cell growth it is by now clear that stochastic…
Understanding the mechanisms of interactions within cells, tissues, and organisms is crucial to driving developments across biology and medicine. Mathematical modeling is an essential tool for simulating biological systems and revealing…
Many morphogenetic processes involve mechanical rearrangement of epithelial tissues that is driven by precisely regulated cytoskeletal forces and cell adhesion. The mechanical state of the cell and intercellular adhesion are not only the…
Development in multi-cellular organisms is marked by a high degree of spatial organization of the cells attaining distinct fates in the embryo. We show that receptor-ligand interaction between cells in close physical proximity adaptively…
Living cells exhibit multi-mode transport that switches between an active, self-propelled motion and a seemingly passive, random motion. Cellular decision-making over transport mode switching is a stochastic process that depends on the…