Related papers: Cytoplasmic stirring by active carpets

We consider a coupled model for fluid flow and transport in a domain consisting of two bulk regions separated by a thin porous layer. The thickness of the layer is of order $\varepsilon$ and the microscopic structure of the layer is…

Actin flow in the cortical cytoskeleton underneath the cell membrane generates mechanical stresses that shape the cell surface. We study this mechanism using a hydrodynamic model of a compressible active gel polymerizing at the membrane and…

Halo mergers and shock waves play a crucial role in the process of hierarchical clustering. Hydrodynamical simulations are the principal investigation tool in this field for theoreticians, and predict that a by-product of cluster formation…

Numerical and experimental turbulence simulations are nowadays reaching the size of the so-called big data, thus requiring refined investigative tools for appropriate statistical analyses and data mining. We present a new approach based on…

The motion of a eukaryotic cell presents a variety of interesting and challenging problems from both a modeling and a computational perspective. The processes span many spatial scales (from molecular to tissue) as well as disparate time…

The spontaneous emergence of coherent structures from chaotic backgrounds is a hallmark of active biological swarms. We investigate this self-organization by simulating an ensemble of polar chiral active agents that couple locally via a…

Virus trafficking is fundamental for infection success and plasmid cytosolic trafficking is a key step of gene delivery. Based on the main physical properties of the cellular transport machinery such as microtubules, motor proteins, our…

We introduce a simple model of active transport for an ensemble of particles driven by an external shear flow. Active refers to the fact that the flow of the particles is modified by the distribution of particles itself. The model consists…

Micro-scale cilia play a vital role in mucociliary clearance (MCC) in the human respiratory airways. In this numerical study, we examine fluid transport driven by the active beating of a single filament immersed in a three-dimensional…

Growing experimental evidence shows that cell monolayers can induce long-lived perturbations to their environment, akin to footprints, which in turn influence the global dynamics of the system. Inspired by these observations, we propose a…

Theories of self-organized active fluid surfaces have emerged as an important class of minimal models for the shape dynamics of biological membranes, cells and tissues. However, due to their inherent geometric nonlinearities and the absence…

Cell monolayers are a central model system to tissue biophysics. In vivo, epithelial tissues are curved on the scale of microns, and curvature's role in the onset of spontaneous tissue flows is still not well-understood. Here, we present a…

How the cells break symmetry and organize their edge activity to move directionally is a fun- damental question in cell biology. Physical models of cell motility commonly rely on gradients of regulatory factors and/or feedback from the…

Active systems, from bacterial suspensions to cellular monolayers, are continuously driven out of equilibrium by local injection of energy from their constituent elements and exhibit turbulent-like and chaotic patterns. Here we demonstrate…

We propose an alternative mechanism for intracellular cargo transport which results from motor induced longitudinal fluctuations of cytoskeletal microtubules (MT). The longitudinal fluctuations combined with transient cargo binding to the…

Viscous streaming refers to the rectified, steady flows that emerge when a liquid oscillates around an immersed microfeature, typically a solid body or a bubble. The ability of such features to locally concentrate stresses produces strong…

Tissue remodelling in diverse developmental contexts require cell shape changes that have been associated with pulsation and flow of the actomyosin cytoskeleton. Here we describe the dynamics of the actomyosin cytoskeleton as a confined…

Transport of fluid through a pipe is essential for the operation of macroscale machines and microfluidic devices. Conventional fluids only flow in response to external pressure. We demonstrate that an active isotropic fluid, comprised of…

The mechanical properties of a thin, planar material, perfused by an embedded flow network, can be changed locally and globally by the fluid transport and storage, resulting in small or large-scale deformation, such as out-of-plane…

Migratory and tissue resident cells exhibit highly branched morphologies to perform their function and to adapt to the microenvironment. Immune cells, for example, display transient branched shapes while exploring the surrounding tissues.…