Related papers: Perfect Stabilization of Biomolecular Adhesions un…
Mechanical loading generally weakens adhesive structures and eventually leads to their rupture. However, biological systems can adapt to loads by strengthening adhesions, which is essential for maintaining the integrity of tissue and whole…
Understanding cellular response to mechanical forces is immensely important for a plethora of biological processes. Focal adhesions are multi-molecular protein assemblies that connect the cell to the extracellular matrix and play a pivotal…
We solve the stochastic equations for a cluster of parallel bonds with shared constant loading, rebinding and the completely dissociated state as an absorbing boundary. In the small force regime, cluster lifetime grows only logarithmically…
Single receptor-ligand bonds have finite lifetimes, so that biological systems can dynamically react to changes in their environment. In cell adhesion, adhesion bonds usually act cooperatively in adhesion clusters. Outside the cellular…
Adhesion interactions mediated by multiple bond types are relevant for many biological and soft matter systems, including the adhesion of biological cells and functionalized colloidal particles to various substrates. To elucidate advantages…
Cell-cell adhesion plays a vital role in the development and maintenance of multicellular organisms. One of its functions is regulation of cell migration, such as occurs, e.g. during embryogenesis or in cancer. In this work, we develop a…
Cell-cell adhesion is one the most fundamental mechanisms regulating collective cell migration during tissue development, homeostasis and repair, allowing cell populations to self-organize and eventually form and maintain complex tissue…
The interplay between gravitational and dispersive forces in a multi-streamed medium leads to an effect which is exposed in the present note as the genuine driving force of stabilization of large-scale structure. The conception of `adhesive…
Mechanical coupling between a cell and substrate relies on focal adhesions, clusters of adhesion proteins linking stress fibers (bundles of actin proteins) inside the cell with surrounding tissue. Focal adhesions have been demonstrated to…
Bistability is a major mechanism for cellular decision making and usually results from positive feedback in biochemical control systems. Here we show theoretically that bistability between unbound and bound states of adhesion clusters…
Colloidal particles are often seen as big atoms that can be directly observed in real space. They are therefore playing an increasingly important role as model systems to study processes of interest in condensed matter physics such as…
Tissues are subjected to large external forces and undergo global deformations during morphogenesis. We use synthetic analogues of tissues to study the impact of cell-cell adhesion on the response of cohesive cellular assemblies under such…
The mechanosensitivity of cells, which determines how they are able to respond to mechanical signals received from their environment, is crucial for the functioning of all biological systems. In experiments, cells placed on cyclically…
The optimal shapes attained by contractile cells on adhesive substrates are determined by the interplay between intracellular forces and adhesion with the extracellular matrix. We model the cell as a contractile film bounded by an elastic…
Many biological processes are supported by special molecules, called motor proteins or molecular motors, that transport cellular cargoes along linear protein filaments and can reversibly associate to their tracks. Stimulated by these…
Biological adhesion is a critical mechanical function of complex organisms operating at multiple scales. At the cellular scale, cell-cell adhesion is remarkably tunable to enable both cohesion and malleability during development,…
Adhesion-dependent cells actively sense the mechanical properties of their environment through mechanotransductory processes at focal adhesions, which are integrin-based contacts connecting the extracellular matrix to the cytoskeleton. Here…
Numerous experimental data on the rapid solidification of binary systems exhibit the formation of metastable solid phases with the initial (nominal) chemical composition. This fact is explained by complete solute trapping leading to…
The study of the interactions of living adherent cells with mechanically stable (visco)elastic materials enables understanding and exploiting physiological phenomena mediated by cell-extracellular communication. However, insight on the…
Flocculation is the process whereby particles (i.e., flocs) in suspension reversibly combine and separate. The process is widespread in soft matter and aerosol physics as well as environmental science and engineering. We consider a general…