Related papers: Active gel model for one-dimensional cell migratio…
Cellular contractility, migration, and extracellular matrix (ECM) mechanics are critical for a wide range of biological processes including embryonic development, wound healing, tissue morphogenesis, and regeneration. Even though the…
Collective cell migration governs a range of physiological and pathological processes, from tissue morphogenesis to cancer invasion, in which topological defects arise as an inevitable consequence of frequent cellular rearrangement and…
Cells and tissues have the remarkable ability to actively generate the forces required to change their shape. This active mechanical behavior is largely mediated by the actin cytoskeleton, a crosslinked network of actin filaments that is…
We present dynamics calculations showing how electron-correlation-driven charge migration occurring in the correlation band of ionized molecules can lead to a redistribution of the charge increasing the stability of the system. These…
Biological systems tightly regulate their physiological state using control signals. This includes the actomyosin cytoskeleton, a contractile active gel that consumes chemical free energy to drive many examples of cellular mechanical…
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,…
The migratory dynamics of cells in physiological processes, ranging from wound healing to cancer metastasis, rely on contact-mediated cell-cell interactions. These interactions play a key role in shaping the stochastic trajectories of…
Contact inhibition plays a crucial role in the motility of cells, the process of wound healing, and the formation of tumors. By mimicking the mechanical motion of calls crawling on a substrate using a pseudopod, we constructed a minimal…
The directed migration of cells toward stiffer substrate regions or durotaxis is relevant to tissue development and tumor progression. Here, we introduce a phenomenological model for single cell durotaxis that incorporates both elastic…
The nucleus of the eukaryotic cell functions amidst active cytoskeletal filaments, but its response to the stresses carried by these filaments is largely unexplored. We report here the results of studies of the translational and rotational…
A number of biological processes, such as embryo development, cancer metastasis or wound healing, rely on cells moving in concert. The mechanisms leading to the emergence of coordinated motion remain however largely unexplored. Although…
Left-right axis specification establishes embryonic laterality through asymmetric signaling cascades originating at the cellular scale. We previously reported the presence of a directionality bias in confined pairs of endothelial (and…
Cell migration is a fundamental process involved in physiological phenomena such as the immune response and morphogenesis, but also in pathological processes, such as the development of tumor metastasis. These functions are effectively…
Active gels are a class of biologically-relevant material containing embedded agents that spontaneously generate forces acting on a sparse filament network. In vitro experiments of protein filaments and molecular motors have revealed a…
We apply a recently developed model of cytoskeletal force generation to study a cell intrinsic contractility, as well as its response to external loading. The model is based on a non-equilibrium thermodynamic treatment of the…
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…
There are numerous scenarios in which populations of cells migrate in crowded environments. Typical examples include wound healing, cancer growth and embryo development. In these crowded environments cells are able to interact with each…
Actomyosin networks are major structural components of the cell. They provide mechanical integrity and allow dynamic remodeling of eukaryotic cells, self-organizing into the diverse patterns essential for development. We provide a…
While it is commonly observed that the shape dynamics of mammalian cells can undergo large random fluctuations, theoretical models aiming at capturing cell mechanics often focus on the deterministic part of the motion. In this paper, we…
The actin cytoskeleton in living cells generates forces in conjunction with myosin motor proteins to directly and indirectly drive essential cellular processes. The semiflexible filaments of the cytoskeleton can respond nonlinearly to the…