Related papers: How negative feedback from filamentous actin affec…
Ability of smooth muscles to contract in response to distension plays a crucial role in motor function of intestine. Qualitative analysis of dynamical models using myogenic active property of smooth muscles has shown well agreement with…
Dendritic spines are small membranous structures that protrude from the neuronal dendrite. Each spine contains a synaptic contact site that may connect its parent dendrite to the axons of neighboring neurons. Dendritic spines are markedly…
The motility of a cell can be triggered or inhibited not only by an applied force but also by a mechanically neutral force couple. This type of loading, represented by an applied stress and commonly interpreted as either squeezing or…
Living cells employ excitable reaction-diffusion waves for internal cellular functions, in which curvature-inducing proteins are often involved. However, the role of their mechanochemical coupling is not well understood. Here, we report the…
Active matter comprises individual units that convert energy into mechanical motion. In many examples, such as bacterial systems and biofilament assays, constituent units are elongated and can give rise to local nematic orientational order.…
In this paper, we introduce an ASEP-like transport model for bidirectional motion of particles on a multi-lane lattice. The model is motivated by {\em in vivo} experiments on organelle motility along a microtubule (MT), consisting of…
Living things enact control of non-equilibrium, dynamical structures through complex biochemical networks, accomplishing spatiotemporally-orchestrated physiological tasks such as cell division, motility, and embryogenesis. While the exact…
The actin cytoskeleton is a key component in the machinery of eukaryotic cells, and it selfassembles out of equilibrium into a wide variety of biologically crucial structures. While the molecular mechanisms involved are well characterized,…
In vivo, cells navigate through complex environments filled with obstacles. Recently, the term 'topotaxis' has been introduced for navigation along topographic cues such as obstacle density gradients. Experimental and mathematical efforts…
Active solids such as cell collectives, colloidal clusters, and active metamaterials exhibit diverse collective phenomena, ranging from rigid body motion to shape-changing mechanisms. The nonlinear dynamics of such active materials remains…
How do topological defects affect the degree of order in active matter? To answer this question we investigate an agent-based model of self-propelled particles, which accounts for polar alignment and short-ranged repulsive interactions. For…
We consider a system of two PDEs arising in modeling of motility of eukariotic cells on substrates. This system consists of the Allen-Cahn equation for the scalar phase field function coupled with another vectorial parabolic equation for…
We present a study on filamentous actin solutions containing heavy meromyosin subfragments of myosin II motor molecules. We focus on the viscoelastic phase behavior and internal dynamics of such networks during ATP depletion. Upon…
The molecular network in an organism consists of transcription/translation regulation, protein-protein interactions/modifications and a metabolic network, together forming a system that allows the cell to respond sensibly to the multiple…
The spatiotemporal organisation of proteins and lipids on the cell surface has direct functional consequences for signaling, sorting and endocytosis. Earlier studies have shown that multiple types of membrane proteins including…
Eukaryotic cells possess motility mechanisms allowing them not only to self-propel but also to exert forces on obstacles (to push) and to carry cargoes (to pull). To study the inherent asymmetry between active pushing and pulling we model a…
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…
Models based on surfactant driven instabilities have been employed to describe pattern formation by swarming bacteria. However, by definition, such models cannot account for the effect of bacterial sensing and decision making. Here we…
Biological activity gives rise to non-equilibrium fluctuations in the cytoplasm of cells; however, there are few methods to directly measure these fluctuations. Using a reconstituted actin cytoskeleton, we show that the bending dynamics of…
In biological systems, active agents such as actomyosin and cells move and interact on curved surfaces, exhibiting diverse phenomena. These observations have motivated studies of how curvature shapes their collective behavior. Here, using a…