Related papers: Influence of boundary geometry on active patterns
Many models have been developed to study the role of branching actin networks in motility. One important component of those models is the distribution of filament orientations relative to the cell membrane. Two mean-field models previously…
Cell migration is fundamental to development, tissue organization, immune response, and disease progression. Amoeboid motility is distinguished by rapid motion and strongly fluctuating cell shapes, reflecting the intrinsically nonlinear…
Cells and tissues have the remarkable ability to actively generate the forces required to change their shape. This active mechanical behavior is largely mediated by the actin cytoskeleton, a crosslinked network of actin filaments that is…
Myosin II molecular motors slide actin filaments relatively to each other and are essential for force generation, motility and mechanosensing in animal cells. For non-muscle cells, evolution has resulted in three different isoforms, which…
Actin and myosin assemble into a thin layer of a highly dynamic network underneath the membrane of eukaryotic cells. This network generates the forces that drive cell and tissue-scale morphogenetic processes. The effective material…
The persistent dynamics in systems out of equilibrium, particularly those characterized by annihilation and creation of topological defects, is known to involve complicated spatiotemporal processes and is deemed difficult to control. Here…
Important cellular processes, such as cell motility and cell division, are coordinated by cell polarity, which is determined by the non-uniform distribution of certain proteins. Such protein patterns form via an interplay of protein…
We investigate numerically the dynamics of unstable gravity driven three-dimensional thin liquid films on hydrophilic-hydrophobic patterned substrates of longitudinal stripes and checkerboard arrangements. The thin film can be guided…
The motility of eukaryotic cells is strongly influenced by their environment, with confined cells often developing qualitatively different motility patterns from those migrating on simple two-dimensional substrates. Recent experiments,…
We present a generic model of cell motility generated by acto-myosin contraction of the cell cortex. We identify analytically dynamical instabilities of the cortex and show that they trigger spontaneous cortical flows which in turn can…
Droplets are essential for spatially controlling biomolecules in cells. To work properly, cells need to control the emergence and morphology of droplets. On the one hand, driven chemical reactions can affect droplets profoundly. For…
We use continuum simulations to study the impact of anisotropic hydrodynamic friction on the emergent flows of active nematics. We show that, depending on whether the active particles align with or tumble in their collectively self-induced…
In several pathological conditions, such as coronavirus infections, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, the physiological shape of axons is altered and a periodic sequence of bulges appears. Experimental evidences…
In many biological systems, the curvature of the surfaces cells live on influence their collective properties. Curvature should likewise influence the behavior of active colloidal particles. We show using molecular simulation of…
Cadherin adhesion receptors are fundamental determinants of tissue organization in health and disease. Increasingly, we have come to appreciate that classical cadherins exert their biological actions through active cooperation with the…
Inter neuron communication happens through the exchange of neurotransmitters at the synapse by a process known as exocytosis. This makes exocytosis a fundamental process of information exchange in the body. The exocytosis process has a…
Cell shape changes are vital for many physiological processes such as cell proliferation, cell migration and morphogenesis. They emerge from an orchestrated interplay of active cellular force generation and passive cellular force response -…
Contractile biopolymer networks, such as the actomyosin meshwork of animal cells, are ubiquitous in living organisms. The active gel theory, which provides the thermodynamic framework for these materials, has been mostly used in conjunction…
The crawling motility of many eukaryotic cells is driven by filamentous actin (F-actin), and regulated by a network of signaling proteins and lipids (including small GTPases). The tangle of positive and negative feedback loops gives rise to…
Some dividing cells sense their shape by becoming polarized along their long axis. Cell polarity is controlled in part by polarity proteins like Rho GTPases cycling between active membrane-bound forms and inactive cytosolic forms, modeled…