Related papers: A first-principles geometric model for dynamics of…
Microtubule asters - radial arrays of microtubules organized by centrosomes - play a fundamental role in the spatial coordination of animal cells. The standard model of aster growth assumes a fixed number of microtubules originating from…
Microtubules (MTs) nucleated by centrosomes form star-shaped structures referred to as asters. Aster motility and dynamics is vital for genome stability, cell division, polarization and differentiation. Asters move either towards the cell…
Microtubule (MT) radial arrays or asters establish the internal topology of a cell by interacting with organelles and molecular motors. We proceed to understand the general pattern forming potential of aster-motor systems using a…
Robust self-organization of subcellular structures is a key principle governing the dynamics and evolution of cellular life. In fission yeast cells undergoing division, the mitotic spindle spontaneously emerges from the interaction of…
We model the effects of confinement on the stable self-organized patterns obtained in the non-equilibrium steady states of mixtures of molecular motors and microtubules. In experiments [Nedelec et al. Nature, 389, 305 (1997); Surrey et al.,…
Precise positioning of the mitotic spindle is important for specifying the plane of cell division, which in turn determines how the cytoplasmic contents are partitioned into the daughter cells, and how the daughters are positioned within…
An aster of microtubules is a set of flexible polar filaments with dynamic plus-ends, which irradiate from a common location at which the minus ends of the filaments are found. Processive soluble oligomeric motor complexes can bind…
During cell division, the mitotic spindle moves dynamically through the cell to position the chromosomes and determine the ultimate spatial position of the two daughter cells. These movements have been attributed to the action of cortical…
Assembly and stability of mitotic spindle is governed by the interplay of various intra-cellular forces, e.g. the forces generated by motor proteins by sliding overlapping anti-parallel microtubules (MTs) polymerized from the opposite…
Asteroseismic measurements of the internal rotation rate in evolved stars pointed out to a lack of angular momentum (AM) transport in stellar evolution models. Several physical processes in addition to hydrodynamical ones were proposed as…
We derive a model describing spatio-temporal organization of an array of microtubules interacting via molecular motors. Starting from a stochastic model of inelastic polar rods with a generic anisotropic interaction kernel we obtain a set…
Based on symmetry consideration of migration and shape deformations, we formulate phenomenologically the dynamics of cell crawling in two dimensions. Forces are introduced to change the cell shape. The shape deformations induce migration of…
Active forces occurring within cells can drive crucial biological processes that involve spontaneous organization and shape change, such as cell division. Motivated by recent in vitro experiments of nematic droplets of cytoskeletal…
During the asymmetric division of the Caenorhabditis elegans nematode zygote, the polarity cues distribution and daughter cell fates depend on the correct positioning of the mitotic spindle, which results from both centering and cortical…
We study the dynamics of pattern formation in a minimal model for active mixtures made of microtubules and molecular motors. We monitor the evolution of the (conserved) microtubule density and of the (non-conserved) nematic order parameter,…
The interaction of the actin cytoskeleton with cell-substrate adhesions is necessary for cell migration. While the trajectories of motile cells have a stochastic character, investigations of cell motility mechanisms rarely elaborate on the…
We derive a model describing spatio-temporal organization of an array of microtubules interacting via molecular motors. Starting from a stochastic model of inelastic polar rods with a generic anisotropic interaction kernel we obtain a set…
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…
Stall cells are spanwise-periodic flow structures that spontaneously form on airfoils operating near stall, fundamentally altering the aerodynamic loading distribution. Despite decades of experimental observations, a complete theoretical…
Sedimentation is extremely common in nature, occurring throughout the atmosphere and oceans, and in every laboratory centrifuge. The shape and mass distribution of a particle uniquely determines its motion at low Reynolds number, and…