Related papers: Cell clusters sense their global shape to drive co…
Many cellular processes require a polarization axis which generally initially emerges as an inhomogeneous distribution of molecular markers in the cell. We present a simple analytical model of a general mechanism of cell polarization taking…
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…
We perform cell segmentation on images from experimental studies of confluent, mobile cells in epithelial monolayers and show that these systems possess a broad, positively-skewed shape parameter distribution $P(\mathcal{A})$, where…
Granular materials are inherently out-of-equilibrium systems due to energy dissipation through inelastic collisions and friction. When driven by mechanical agitation such as vibration, they exhibit rich collective behaviors including…
Transitions from quiescence to collective migration in epithelia underlie wound healing and cancer invasion, yet their physical origin remains poorly understood. Here we show that quiescent epithelial monolayers store spatially contractile…
Collective cell migration plays a crucial role in numerous biological processes, including tumour growth, wound healing, and the immune response. Often, the migrating population consists of cells with various different phenotypes. This…
In this work we approach cell migration under a large-scale assumption, so that the system reduces to a particle in motion. Unlike classical particle models, the cell displacement results from its internal activity: the cell velocity is a…
We have studied the collective motion of polar active particles confined to ellipsoidal surfaces. The geometric constraints lead to the formation of vortices that encircle surface points of constant curvature (umbilics). We have found that…
A fundamental feature of collective cell migration is phenotypic heterogeneity which, for example, influences tumour progression and relapse. While current mathematical models often consider discrete phenotypic structuring of the cell…
Cell migration is important in many biological processes, including embryonic development, cancer metastasis, and wound healing. In these tissues, a cell's motion is often strongly constrained by its neighbors, leading to glassy dynamics.…
Cell shape has long been used to discern cell phenotypes and states, but the underlying premise has not been quantitatively tested. Here, we show that a single cell image can be used to discriminate its migration behavior by analyzing a…
During cell migration, cells become polarized, change their shape, and move in response to various internal and external cues. Cell polarization is defined through the spatio-temporal organization of molecules such as PI3K or small GTPases,…
We study a generic model for the polarisation and motility of self-propelled soft objects, biological cells or biomimetic systems, interacting with a viscous substrate. The active forces generated by the cell on the substrate are modelled…
We report computer simulation results on the cluster formation of dipolar colloidal particles driven by a rotating external field in a quasi-two-dimensional setup. We focus on the interplay between permanent dipolar and hydrodynamic…
We introduce a generic, purely mechanical model for environment sensitive motion of mammalian cells that is applicable to chemotaxis, haptotaxis, and durotaxis as modes of motility. It is able to theoretically explain all relevant…
Control of the cytoskeleton and mechanical contacts with the extracellular environment are essential component of motility in eukaryotic cells. In the absence of signals, cells continuously rebuild the cytoskeleton and periodically extend…
Cell motility is fundamental to many biological processes, and cells exhibit a variety of migration patterns. Many motile cell types follow a universal law that connects their speed and persistency, a property that can originate from the…
Cells in an epithelial monolayer coordinate motion with their neighbors giving rise to collectively moving packs of sizes spanning multiple cell diameters. The physical mechanism controlling the pack size, however, remains unclear. A…
Cellular membranes exhibit a large variety of shapes, strongly coupled to their function. Many biological processes involve dynamic reshaping of membranes, usually mediated by proteins. This interaction works both ways: while proteins…
Recent research has shown that motile cells can adapt their mode of propulsion to the mechanical properties of the environment in which they find themselves--crawling in some environments while swimming in others. The latter can involve…