Related papers: Stress distribution in contractile cell monolayers
We investigate a continuum mechanical model for an adherent cell on two dimensional adhesive micropatterned substrates. The cell is modeled as an isotropic and homogeneous elastic material subject to uniform internal contractile stresses.…
It is well known that many biochemical processes in the cell such as gene regulation, growth signals and activation of ion channels, rely on mechanical stimuli. However, the mechanism by which mechanical signals propagate through cells is…
Cells sense the geometry and stiffness of their adhesive environment by active contractility. For strong adhesion to flat substrates, two-dimensional contractile network models can be used to understand how force is distributed throughout…
Compliant environments can mediate interactions between mechanically active cells like fibroblasts. Starting with a phenomenological model for the behaviour of single cells, we use extensive Monte Carlo simulations to predict non-trivial…
Many types of mammalian cells exert active contractile forces and mechanically deform their elastic substrate, to accomplish biological functions such as cell migration. These substrate deformations provide a mechanism by which cells can…
In confluent cell monolayers, patterns of cell forces and motion are systematically altered near topological defects in cell shape. In turn, defects have been proposed to alter cell density, extrusion, and invasion, but it remains unclear…
Bacterial colonies growing on surfaces are shaped by mechanical stresses transmitted through the community, governed by the balance between cell growth and steric and cell-substrate interactions. Using overdamped dynamics simulations of…
In this paper, we develop and analyze a minimal model for a 2D network of cross-linked actin filaments and myosin motors, representing the cortical cytoskeleton of eukaryotic cells. We implement coarse-grained representations of force…
Biological systems tightly regulate their physiological state using control signals. This includes the actomyosin cytoskeleton, a contractile active gel that consumes chemical free energy to drive many examples of cellular mechanical…
It is increasingly being realized that liquid-crystalline features can play an important role in the properties and dynamics of cell monolayers. Here, we present a cell-based model of cell layers, based on the phase-field formulation, that…
Many closed-cell foams exhibit an elongated cell shape in the foam rise direction, resulting in anisotropic compressive properties. Nevertheless, the underlying deformation mechanisms and how cell shape anisotropy induces this mechanical…
Cell alignment often forms nematic order, which can lead to anomalous collective cell flow due to the so-called active force. Although it is appreciated that cell migration is driven by traction force, a quantitative evaluation of the…
The one-dimensional crawling movement of a cell is considered in this theoretical study. Our active gel model shows that for a cell with weakly mechanosensitive adhesion complexes, as myosin contractility increases, a cell starts to move at…
Epithelial cell layers on soft elastic substrates or pillar arrays are commonly used as model systems for investigating the role of force in tissue growth, maintenance and repair. Here we show analytically that the experimentally observed…
Collective cell migration in cohesive units is vital for tissue morphogenesis, wound repair, and immune response. While the fundamental driving forces for collective cell motion stem from contractile and protrusive activities of individual…
Collective cell migration governs a range of physiological and pathological processes, from tissue morphogenesis to cancer invasion, in which topological defects arise as an inevitable consequence of frequent cellular rearrangement and…
Contractile actomyosin network flows are crucial for many cellular processes including cell division and motility, morphogenesis and transport. How local remodeling of actin architecture tunes stress production and dissipation and regulates…
Mechanical cues from the extracellular microenvironment play a central role in regulating the structure, function and fate of living cells. Nevertheless, the precise nature of the mechanisms and processes underlying this crucial cellular…
We study the dynamics of proliferating cell collectives whose microscopic constituents' growth is inhibited by macroscopic growth-induced stress. Discrete particle simulations of a growing collective show the emergence of concentric-ring…
Cells and tissues exert forces and can actively change shape. This strikingly autonomous behavior is powered by the cytoskeleton, which includes an active gel of actin filaments, crosslinks, and myosin molecular motors. Although individual…