Related papers: Force Propagation in Active Cytoskeletal Networks
Microorganisms often encounter strong confinement and complex hydrodynamic flows while navigating their habitats. Combining finite-element methods and stochastic simulations, we study the interplay of active transport and heterogeneous…
Navigation of microorganisms is controlled by internal processes ultimately sensitive to mechanical or chemical signaling encountered along the path. In many natural environments, such as porous soils or physiological ducts, motile species…
The macroscopic behaviour of active matter arises from nonequilibrium microscopic processes. In soft materials, active stresses typically drive macroscopic shape changes, which in turn alter the geometry constraining the microscopic…
The role of activity on the hydrodynamic dispersion of bacteria in a model porous medium is studied by tracking thousands of bacteria in a microfluidic chip containing randomly placed pillars. We first evaluate the spreading dynamics of two…
Anomalously slow passive diffusion, $\langle \delta x^2(t)\rangle\simeq t^{\alpha}$, with $0<\alpha<1$, of larger tracers such as messenger RNA and endogenous submicron granules in the cytoplasm of living biological cells has been…
In vivo, eukaryotic cells are embedded in a matrix environment, where they grow and develop. Generally, this extracellular matrix (ECM) is an anisotropic fibrous structure, through which macromolecules and biochemical signaling molecules at…
Propagating spiral waves have been discovered in various chemical, biological and physical systems. Spiral waves in multicellular organisms are often associated with essential living functions. Although certain eukaryotic microorganisms…
A qualitative model is presented, suggesting gravitational information is transduced into biological systems primarily by its effect on spatially organised membrane and cytoplasmic flows. Continuous low affinity interactions between…
Membrane tubulation is a ubiquitous process that occurs both at the plasma membrane and on the membranes of intracellular organelles. These tubulation events are known to be mediated by forces applied on the membrane either due to motor…
The dynamic behavior of microtubules in solution can be strongly modified by interactions with walls or other structures. We examine here a microtubule growth model where the increase in size of the plus-end is perturbed by collisions with…
Intracellular components explore the cytoplasm via active motor-driven transport in conjunction with passive diffusion. We model the motion of organelles in narrow tubular cells using analytical techniques and numerical simulations to study…
In a prototypical mode of single-cell migration, retrograde cytoskeletal flow is mechanically coupled to the environment, propels the cell, and is sustained by an anterograde cytosolic flow of disassembled cytoskeletal components.…
Bacteria possess diverse mechanisms to regulate their motility in response to environmental and physiological signals, enabling them to navigate complex habitats and adapt their behavior. Among these mechanisms, interspecies recognition…
We study transport in synthetic, bi-disperse porous structures, with arrays of microchannels interconnected by a nanoporous layer. These structures are inspired by the xylem tissue in vascular plants, in which sap water travels from the…
We analyze the nonlinear waves that propagate on a microtubule that is tethered at its minus end due to kinesin walking on it, as is seen during the fluid mixing caused by cytoplasmic streaming in Drosophila oocytes.The model we use assumes…
The mitotic spindle lies at the heart of the spatio-temporal control over cellular components during cell division. The spindle consists of microtubules, which are not only crosslinked by motor proteins but also by passive binding proteins.…
Eukaryote cells have a flexible shape, which dynamically changes according to the function performed by the cell. One mechanism for deforming the cell membrane into the desired shape is through the expression of curved membrane proteins.…
Multicellular collective migration is a ubiquitous strategy of cells to translocate spatially in diverse tissue environments to accomplish a wide variety of biological phenomena, viz. embryonic development, wound healing, and tumor…
Cells can sense and respond to mechanical signals over relatively long distances across fibrous extracellular matrices. Here, we explore all of the key factors that influence long range force transmission in cell-populated collagen…
We study the transport of bacteria in a porous media modeled by a square channel containing one cylindrical obstacle via molecular dynamics simulations coupled to a lattice Boltzmann fluid. Our bacteria model is a rod-shaped rigid body…