Related papers: Active gel theory for cell migration with two myos…
Tissue cells are in a state of permanent mechanical tension that is maintained mainly by myosin II minifilaments, which are bipolar assemblies of tens of myosin II molecular motors contracting actin networks and bundles. Here we introduce a…
Liquid migration in active soft solids is a very common phenomenon in Nature at different scales: from cells to leaves. It can be caused by mechanical as well as chemical actions. The work focuses on the migration of liquid provoked by…
Actin flow in the cortical cytoskeleton underneath the cell membrane generates mechanical stresses that shape the cell surface. We study this mechanism using a hydrodynamic model of a compressible active gel polymerizing at the membrane and…
Active force generation by actin-myosin cortex coupled to the cell membrane allows the cell to deform, respond to the environment, and mediate cell motility and division. Several membrane-bound activator proteins move along it and couple to…
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…
Intracellular transport along microtubules or actin filaments, powered by molecular motors such as kinesins, dyneins or myosins, has been recently modeled using one-dimensional driven lattice gases. We discuss some generalizations of these…
Reconstituted filamentous actin networks with myosin motor proteins form active gels, in which motor proteins generate forces that drive the network far from equilibrium. This motor activity can also strongly affect the network elasticity;…
Cell migration plays a fundamental role in numerous physiological processes, including embryonic development, wound healing, and cancer metastasis. While cell-cell adhesion is known to regulate motion by shaping cell morphology and…
This paper concerns a model for tumor cell migration through the surrounding extracellular matrix by considering mass balance phenomena involving the chemical interactions produced on the cell surface. The well-posedness of this model is…
We present a model for the actin contractile ring of adherent animal cells. The model suggests that the actin concentration within the ring and consequently the power that the ring exerts both increase during contraction. We demonstrate the…
Contractile forces are essential for many developmental processes involving cell shape change and tissue deformation. Recent experiments on reconstituted actomyosin networks, the major component of the contractile machinery, have shown that…
Regulation of contraction in striated muscle is controlled by a dual mechanism involving both thin filaments containing actin and thick filaments containing myosin. The thin filament is activated by calcium ions binding to troponin, leading…
Cell crawling requires the generation of intracellular forces by the cytoskeleton and their transmission to an extracellular substrate through specific adhesion molecules. Crawling cells show many features of excitable systems, such as…
In the absence of environmental cues, a migrating cell performs an isotropic random motion. Recently, the breaking of this isotropy has been observed when cells move in the presence of asymmetric adhesive patterns. However, up to now the…
The development of traction-force microscopy, in the past two decades, has created the unprecedented opportunity of performing direct mechanical measurements on living cells as they adhere or crawl on uniform or micro-patterned substrates.…
Molecular motors are found throughout the cells of the human body, and have many different and important roles. These micro-machines move along filament tracks, and have the ability to convert chemical energy into mechanical work that…
Many cell functions are accomplished thanks to intracellular transport mechanisms of macromolecules along filaments. Molecular motors such as dynein or kinesin are proteins playing a primary role in these processes. The behavior of such…
A simple model is proposed that describes the various morphodynamic principles of migrating cells from polar to amoeboidal motions. The model equation is derived using competing internal cellular compass variables and symmetries of the…
We introduce a multi-species lattice gas model for motor protein driven collective cargo transport on cellular filaments. We use this model to describe and analyze the collective motion of interacting vesicle cargoes being carried by…
In this paper we report, clarify and broaden various recent efforts to complement the chemistry-centered models of force generation in muscles by mechanics-centered models. The physical mechanisms of interest can be grouped into two…