Related papers: Cells around the corner
Adhering cells actively probe the mechanical properties of their environment and use the resulting information to position and orient themselves. We show that a large body of experimental observations can be consistently explained from one…
The connection between the properties of cell tissue and those of the single constituent cells remains to be elucidated. At the purely mechanical level, the degree of rigidity of different cellular components, such as the nucleus and the…
A crystal lattice, when confined to the surface of a cylinder, must have a periodic structure that is commensurate with the cylinder circumference. This constraint can frustrate the system, leading to oblique crystal lattices or to…
The role of applied fields on the structure of liquid crystals confined to shell geometries has been studied in past theoretical work, providing strategies to produce liquid crystal shells with controlled defect structure or valence.…
We consider three-dimensional reshaping of a thin nematoelastic film upon nematic-isotropic transition in the field of a charge one topological defect, leading to either cone or anticone (d-cone) shells. The analysis is based on the…
Two-dimensional (2D) mechanical models of confluent tissues have related the mechanical state of a monolayer of cells to the average perimeter length of the cell cross sections, predicting floppiness or rigidity of the material. For the…
We develop the fundamentals of nonlinear and anisotropic bending behavior of biomimetic scale plates using a combination of analytical modeling, finite element (FE) computations, and motivational experiments. The analytical…
One of the central appealing properties of magnetic gels and elastomers is that their elastic moduli can reversibly be adjusted from outside by applying magnetic fields. The impact of the internal magnetic particle distribution on this…
Functionality of living cells is inherently linked to subunits with dimensions on the nanoscale. In case of osteoblasts the cell surface plays a particularly important role for adhesion and spreading which are crucial properties with regard…
We present a single, unified, multi-scale model to study the attachment\detachment dynamics of two deforming, near spherical cells, coated with binding ligands and subject to a slow, homogeneous shear flow in a viscous fluid medium. The…
We describe electrophoresis of spherical dielectric particles in a uniformly aligned nematic medium with a negative dielectric anisotropy. A spherical particle that orients the liquid crystal (LC) perpendicularly to its surface moves under…
In this paper, we model the configurations of a system of hard rods by viewing each rod in a cell formed by its neighbors. By minimizing the free energy in the model and performing molecular dynamics, where, in both cases, the shape of the…
A continuum theory is employed to numerically study the equilibrium orientation and defect structures of a circular cylindrical particle with flat ends under a homeotropic anchoring condition in a uniform nematic medium. Different aspect…
We studied equilibrium systems composed of wedge-shaped monodisperse molecules using hard-particle Monte Carlo simulations. Each model molecule was made up of six colinear tangent spheres with linearly decreasing diameters. Thus, the shape…
The assembly of colloids in nematic liquid crystals via topological defects has been extensively studied for spherical particles, and investigations of other colloid shapes have revealed a wide array of new assembly behaviors. We show,…
Rigidity transitions in simple models of confluent cells have been a powerful organizing principle in understanding the dynamics and mechanics of dense biological tissue. In this work we explore the interplay between geometry and rigidity…
Colloidal rods immersed in a thermotropic liquid-crystalline solvent are at the basis of so-called hybrid liquid crystals which are characterized by tunable nematic fluidity with symmetries ranging from conventional uniaxial nematic or…
Different liquid crystalline phases with long-range orientational but not positional order, so-called nematic phases, are scarce. It rarely occurs that a new nematic phase is discovered and such event is inevitably accompanied by a great…
The statistical-mechanical study of the equilibrium properties of fluids, starting from the knowledge of the interparticle interaction potential, is essential to understand the role that microscopic interaction between individual particles…
Free interfaces of liquid crystals tend to minimise both capillarity and anchoring forces. Here we study nematic films in planar and radial geometries with antagonistic anchoring boundary conditions and one deformable interface. Assuming a…