Related papers: Density-dependent flow generation in active cytosk…
Intracellular transport is vital for the proper functioning and survival of a cell. Cargo (proteins, vesicles, organelles, etc.) is transferred from its place of creation to its target locations via molecular motor assisted transport along…
The cytoskeleton is an important subsystem of cells that is involved for example in cell division and locomotion. It consists of filaments that are cross-linked by molecular motors that can induce relative sliding between filaments and…
We investigate the mechanical interplay between the spatial organization of the actin cytoskeleton and the shape of animal cells adhering on micropillar arrays. Using a combination of analytical work, computer simulations and in vitro…
Actomyosin actively generates contractile forces that provide the plasma membrane with the deformation stresses essential to carry out biological processes. Although the contractile property of purified actomyosin has been extensively…
The actomyosin cortex is an active material that provides animal cells with a strong but flexible exterior, whose mechanics, including non-Gaussian fluctuations and occasional large displacements or cytoquakes, have defied explanation. We…
The cellular cytoskeleton is an active material, driven out of equilibrium by molecular motor proteins. It is not understood how the collective behaviors of cytoskeletal networks emerge from the properties of the network's constituent motor…
Active gels play an important role in biology and in inspiring biomimetic active materials, due to their ability to change shape, size and create their own morphology; the relevant mechanics behind these changes is driven by…
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…
Biological actuators -- from myosin motors to muscles -- follow Hill's model where a dimensionless parameter $\alpha$ captures the nonlinear coupling between contraction rate and force generation. Our prior work identified a characteristic…
Cord-forming fungi form extensive networks that continuously adapt to maintain an efficient transport system. As osmotically driven water uptake is often distal from the tips, and aqueous fluids are incompressible, we propose that growth…
Observations of single epidermal cells on flat adhesive substrates have revealed two distinct morphological and functional states, namely a non-migrating symmetric unpolarized state and a migrating asymmetric polarized state. These states…
Detailed measurements of intrinsic axial flow generation parallel to the magnetic field in the controlled shear decorrelation experiment linear plasma device with no axial momentum input are presented and compared to theory. The results…
Fluid-structure interactions between active and passive components are important for many biological systems to function. A particular example is chromatin in the cell nucleus, where ATP-powered processes drive coherent motions of the…
From biofilm and colony formation in bacteria to wound healing and embryonic development in multicellular organisms, groups of living cells must often move collectively. While considerable study has probed the biophysical mechanisms of how…
Recent experimental studies, both in vivo and in vitro, have revealed that membrane components that bind to the cortical actomyosin meshwork are driven by active fluctuations, whereas membrane components that do not bind to cortical actin…
Cell crawling crucially depends on the collective dynamics of the acto-myosin cytoskeleton. However, it remains an open question to what extent cell polarization and persistent motion depend on continuous regulatory mechanisms and…
Active processes drive and guide biological dynamics across scales -- from subcellular cytoskeletal remodelling, through tissue development in embryogenesis, to population-level bacterial colonies expansion. In each of these, biological…
Using both dynamical density functional theory and particle-resolved Brownian dynamics simulations, we explore the flow of two-dimensional colloidal solids and fluids driven through a linear channel with a geometric constriction. The flow…
The sliding friction force exerted by stochastic linkers interacting with a moving filament is calculated. The elastic properties of the substrate on which the linkers are anchored are shown to strongly influence the friction force. In some…
Based on experimental observations it is known that various biological cells exhibit a persistent random walk during migration on flat substrates. The persistent random walk is characterized by `stop-and-go' movements : unidirectional…