Related papers: Contractility-driven cell motility against a visco…
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…
Single and collective cellular oscillations involving the actomyosin cytoskeleton have been observed in numerous biological systems. We show here that a generic model of a contractile material, which is turning over and contracts against an…
Motile eukaryotic cells display distinct modes of migration that often occur within the same cell type. It remains unclear, however, whether transitions between the migratory modes require changes in external conditions, or whether the…
Motility is an essential factor for an organism's survival and diversification. With the advent of novel single-cell technologies, analytical frameworks and theoretical methods, we can begin to probe the complex lives of microscopic motile…
Epithelial cell clusters often move collectively on a substrate. Mechanical signals play a major role in organizing this behavior. There are a number of experimental observations in these systems which await a comprehensive explanation.…
Within cells, vesicles and proteins are actively transported several micrometers along the cytoskeletal filaments. The transport along microtubules is propelled by dynein and kinesin motors, which carry the cargo in opposite directions.…
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…
We show from experiments and simulations on vibration-activated granular matter that self-propelled polar rods in an elastic medium on a substrate turn and move towards each other. We account for this effective attraction through a…
The present article is an invited contribution to the Encyclopedia of Complexity and System Science, Robert A. Meyers Ed., Springer New York (2009). It is a review of the biophysical mechanisms that underly cell motility. It mainly focuses…
Many biological processes involve the action of molecular motors that interact with the cell cytoskeleton. Some processes, such as the transport of cargoes is achieved mainly by the action of individual motors. Other, such as cell motility…
Cellular locomotion often involves the motion of thin, elastic filaments, such as cilia and flagella, in viscous environments. The manuscript serves as a general introduction to the topic of modelling microscale elastohydrodynamics. We…
Several meters below the coastal ocean surface there are areas of high ecological activity that contain thin layers of concentrated motile phytoplankton. Gyrotactic trapping has been proposed as a potential mechanism for layer formation of…
We present a generic theory for the dynamics of a stiff filament under tension, in an active medium with orientational correlations, such as a microtubule in contractile actin. In sharp contrast to the case of a passive medium, we find the…
To understand the relationship between the chirality of individual cells and that of tissues and organisms, we have developed a chiral polarized particle model to investigate the movement of cell populations on substrates. Our model…
Cells exhibit qualitatively different behaviors on substrates with different rigidities. The fact that cells are more polarized on the stiffer substrate motivates us to construct a two-dimensional cell with the distribution of focal…
We perform an analytical investigation of the cell interface dynamics in the framework of a minimal phase field model of cell motility suggested in [1], which consists of two coupled evolution equations for the order parameter and a…
Transport of molecules across membrane channels is investigated theoretically using exactly solvable discrete stochastic site-binding models. It is shown that the interaction potential between molecules and the channel has a strong effect…
Eukaryotic cell motility is crucial during development, wound healing, the immune response, and cancer metastasis. Some eukaryotic cells can swim, but cells more commonly adhere to and crawl along the extracellular matrix. We study the…
Active droplets are artificial microswimmers built from a liquid dispersion by microfluidic tools and showing self-propelled motion. These systems hold particular interest for mimicking biological phenomena, such as some aspects of cell…
A cell is polarised when it has developed a main axis of organisation through the reorganisation of its cytosqueleton and its intracellular organelles. Polarisation can occur spontaneously or be triggered by external signals, like gradients…