Related papers: Cytoplasmic stirring by active carpets
We present a continuum level analytical model of a droplet of active contractile fluid consisting of filaments and motors. We calculate the steady state flows that result from a splayed polarisation of the filaments. We account for the…
Living matter moves, deforms, and organizes itself. In cells this is made possible by networks of polymer filaments and crosslinking molecules that connect filaments to each other and that act as motors to do mechanical work on the network.…
Understanding how biomechanical reorganization governs key biological processes, such as morphogenesis and development, requires predictive insights into stress distributions and cellular behavior. While traditional approaches focused on…
A two-dimensional mathematical model for cells migrating without adhesion capabilities is presented and analyzed. Cells are represented by their cortex, which is modelled as an elastic curve, subject to an internal pressure force. Net…
The spontaneous emergence of collective flows is a generic property of active fluids and often leads to chaotic flow patterns characterised by swirls, jets, and topological disclinations in their orientation field. However, the ability to…
The initiation of directional cell motion requires symmetry breaking that can happen both with or without external stimuli. During cell crawling, forces generated by the cytoskeleton and their transmission through mechanosensitive adhesions…
Contractile biopolymer networks, such as the actomyosin meshwork of animal cells, are ubiquitous in living organisms. The active gel theory, which provides the thermodynamic framework for these materials, has been mostly used in conjunction…
Self organization mechanisms are essential for the cytoskeleton to adapt to the requirements of living cells. They rely on the intricate interplay of cytoskeletal filaments, crosslinking proteins and molecular motors. Here we present an in…
We present an experimental study of the statistical properties of millimeter-size spheres floating on the surface of a turbulent flow. The flow is generated in a layer of liquid metal by an electromagnetic forcing. By using two magnet…
Atmospheric flows exhibit long-range spatiotemporal correlations manifested as the fractal geometry to the global cloud cover pattern concomitant with inverse power-law form for power spectra of temporal fluctuations of all scales ranging…
Evaporating colloidal droplets have long been used as model systems to understand capillarity, interfacial transport, and particle assembly, most prominently through the coffee ring effect. In classical descriptions, suspended particles are…
We describe an example of a structurally stable heteroclinic network for which nearby orbits exhibit irregular but sustained switching between the various sub-cycles in the network. The mechanism for switching is the presence of spiralling…
We theoretically explore fluidization of epithelial tissues by active T1 neighbor exchanges. We show that the geometry of cell-cell junctions encodes important information about the local features of the energy landscape, which we support…
The ability of cells to sense and respond to the mechanical properties of their environments is fundamental to a range of cellular behaviours, with substrate stiffness increasingly being found to be a key signalling factor. Although active…
The effect of a network of fixed rigid fibers on fluid flow is investigated by means of three-dimensional direct numerical simulations using an immersed boundary method for the fluid-structure coupling. Different flows are considered (i.e.,…
Mesh-like structures, such as mucus gel or cytoskeleton networks, are ubiquitous in biological systems. These intricate structures are composed of cross-linked, semi-flexible bio-filaments, crucial to numerous biological processes. In many…
Spiral waves are a well-known phenomenon in excitable media, playing critical roles in biological systems such as cardiac tissues, where they are involved in arrhythmias, and in slime molds, where they guide collective cell migration.…
A novel mechanism for cell differentiation is proposed, based on the dynamic clustering in a globally coupled chaotic system. A simple model with metabolic reaction, active transport of chemicals from media, and cell division is found to…
Turbulent flows play an important role in many aspects of nature and technics from sea storms to transport of particles or chemicals. Transport of energy from large scales to small fluctuations is the essential feature of three-dimensional…
Motor-proteins are responsible for transport inside cells. Harnessing their activity is key towards developing new nano-technologies, or functional biomaterials. Cytoskeleton-like networks, recently tailored in vitro, result from the…