Related papers: Strain rate controls alignment in growing bacteria…
In confluent cell monolayers, patterns of cell forces and motion are systematically altered near topological defects in cell shape. In turn, defects have been proposed to alter cell density, extrusion, and invasion, but it remains unclear…
By equilibrating condensed DNA arrays against reservoirs of known osmotic stress and examining them with several structural probes, it has been possible to achieve a detailed thermodynamic and structural characterization of the change…
Bacteria build multicellular communities termed biofilms, which are often encased in a self-secreted extracellular matrix that gives the community mechanical strength and protection against harsh chemicals. How bacteria assemble distinct…
Orientational order, encoded in anisotropic fields, plays an important role during the development of an organism. A striking example of this is the freshwater polyp Hydra, where topological defects in the muscle fiber orientation have been…
Metals deformed at high strain rates can exhibit failure through formation of shear bands, a phenomenon often attributed to Hadamard instability and localization of the strain into an emerging coherent structure. We verify formation of…
Langmuir monolayers are modeled as systems of short chains, which are confined to a planar surface at one end, but free to move within the plane. The phase behavior is calculated in a mean field approximation, which combines the self…
Monolayers of anisotropic cells exhibit long-ranged orientational order and topological defects. During the development of organisms, orientational order often influences morphogenetic events. However, the linkage between the mechanics of…
We theoretically study the phase behaviour of monolayers of hard rod-plate mixtures using a fundamental-measure density functional in the restricted-orientation (Zwanzig) approximation. We consider both species to be subject to an…
Natural bacterial habitats are often complex fluids with viscoelastic and anisotropic responses to stress; for example, they can take the form of liquid crystals (LCs), with elongated microscopic constituents that collectively align while…
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.…
Collective dynamics in proliferating anisotropic particle systems arise from an interplay between growth, division, and mechanical interactions, often mediated by particle shape. In classical models of prolate, rod-like growth, flow-induced…
Key to collective cell migration is the ability of cells to rearrange their position with respect to their neighbors. Recent theory and experiments demonstrated that cellular rearrangements are facilitated by cell shape, with cells having…
Microorganisms, such as bacteria and microalgae, often live in habitats consisting of a liquid phase and a plethora of interfaces. The precise ways in which these motile microbes behave in their confined environment remain unclear. Using…
The effect of out-of-plane orientational freedom on the orientational ordering properties of a monolayer of hard ellipsoids is studied using Parsons-Lee scaling approach and replica exchange Monte Carlo computer simulation. Prolate and…
We investigate the collective behavior of motile rods immersed in a monolayer of apolar rods confined between vertically vibrating plates using numerical simulations. We uncover an antidiffusive instability whereby motile rods segregate…
Rippling patterns of myxobacteria appear in starving colonies before they aggregate to form fruiting bodies. These periodic traveling cell density waves arise from the coordination of individual cell reversals, resulting from an internal…
We examine the ordering behavior of hard plate-like particle in a very narrow slit-like pore using the Parsons-Lee density functional theory and the restricted orientation approximation. We observe that the plates are orientationally…
The cortical array is a structure consisting of highly aligned microtubules which plays a crucial role in the characteristic uniaxial expansion of all growing plant cells. Recent experiments have shown polymerization-driven collisions…
Epithelial cell monolayers expand on substrates by forming finger-like protrusions, created by leader cells, in the monolayer boundary. Information transmission and communication between individual entities in the cohesive collective lead…
The polarisation of cells and tissues is fundamental for tissue morphogenesis during biological development and regeneration. A deeper understanding of biological polarity pattern formation can be gained from the consideration of pattern…