Related papers: Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Nucleo-Cytoplasmic Tra…
Recent studies have suggested that the Nuclear Pore Complex (NPC) plays a significant role in mechanotransduction. When a force is exerted, the NPC's diameter widens, leading to an increased molecular flux into the nucleus. In this study,…
Intracellular transport processes are essential to the healthy development of many organisms as well as more generally to healthy cellular function. The complex dynamics and interactions between protein molecules and filaments on different…
The migration of cells is relevant for processes such as morphogenesis, wound healing, and invasion of cancer cells. In order to move, single cells deform cyclically. However, it is not understood how these shape oscillations influence…
The architecture of the eukaryotic genome is characterized by a high degree of spatial organization. Chromosomes occupy preferred territories correlated to their state of activity and, yet, displace their genes to interact with remote sites…
Dynamics of nucleosomes, the building blocks of the chromatin, has crucial effects on expression, replication and repair of genomes in eukaryotes. Beside constant movements of nucleosomes by thermal fluctuations, ATP-dependent chromatin…
Phase transitions ruled by nucleation and growth can occur by nonrandom arrangement of nuclei. This is verified, for instance, in thin film growth at solid surfaces by vapor condensation or by electrodeposition where, around each nucleus, a…
The Drosophila melanogaster embryo, an elongated multi-nucleated cell, is a classical model system for eukaryotic development and morphogenesis. Recent work has shown that bulk cytoplasmic flows, driven by cortical contractions along the…
Cell migration is a fundamental process underlying the survival and function of both unicellular and multicellular organisms. Crawling motility in eukaryotic cells arises from cyclic protrusion and retraction driven by the cytoskeleton,…
Computational models have become an essential part of exploratory protocols in cell biology, as a complement to in vivo or in vitro experiments. These virtual models have the twofold advantage of enabling access to new types of data and…
Chromatin moves dynamically inside the cell nucleus, and its motion is often correlated with gene functions such as DNA recombination and transcription. A recent study has shown that during early embryogenesis of the nematode,…
The nucleus of eukaryotic cells typically makes up around 30% of the cell volume and has significantly different mechanics, which can make it effectively up to ten times stiffer than the surrounding cytoplasm. Therefore it is an important…
Understanding how transcription factors (TFs) regulate mammalian gene expression in space and time is a central topic in biology. To activate a gene, a TF has first to diffuse in the available space of the nucleus until it reaches a target…
Many biological, physical, and social interactions have a particular dependence on where they take place. In living cells, protein movement between the nucleus and cytoplasm affects cellular response (i.e., proteins must be present in the…
A biophysical issue how the nuclear size dynamically scales with the cellular size remains mysterious. We develop a theoretical framework in which the interactions between polydisperse biomolecules and the mechanical elasticity of the cell…
Collagen fibers, an important component of the extracellular matrix (ECM), can both inhibit and promote cellular migration. {\it In-vitro} studies have revealed that the fibers' orientations are crucial to cellular invasion, while {\it…
Gene delivery of nucleic acid to the cell nucleus is a fundamental step in gene therapy. In this review of modeling drug and gene delivery, we focus on the particular stage of plasmid DNA or virus cytoplasmic trafficking. A challenging…
DNA methylation is a primary layer of epigenetic modification that plays a pivotal role in the regulation of development, aging, and cancer. The concurrent activity of opposing enzymes that mediate DNA methylation and demethylation gives…
The transport of macromolecules, such as DNA, through the cytoskeleton is critical to wide-ranging cellular processes from cytoplasmic streaming to transcription. The rigidity and steric hindrances imparted by the network of filaments…
Collective cell movement, characterized by multiple cells that are in contact for substantial periods of time and undergo correlated motion, plays a central role in cancer and embryogenesis. Recent imaging experiments have provided…
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…