Related papers: Nonlinear Elasticity in Biological Gels
Nanoscale polymeric thin films are widely used in diverse applications such as energy devices, flexible electronics and biosensors, where a satisfactory mechanical performance is of vital importance to realize their full functionality. It…
A collection of thin structures buckle, bend, and bump into each-other when confined. This contact can lead to the formation of patterns: hair will self-organize in curls; DNA strands will layer into cell nuclei; paper, when crumpled, will…
In structure-based models of proteins, one often assumes that folding is accomplished when all contacts are established. This assumption may frequently lead to a conceptual problem that folding takes place in a temperature region of very…
Thin elastic sheets and membranes are known to wrinkle when they are stretched -- the associated physics is highly non-linear. The mechanics of thin films that exhibit unusual behavior upon stretching, when they possess auxetic structure,…
Recent experiments have demonstrated that the nonlinear elasticity of in vitro networks of the biopolymer actin is dramatically altered in the presence of a flexible cross-linker such as the abundant cytoskeletal protein filamin. The basic…
Atomistic deformation simulations in the nominally elastic regime are performed for a model binary glass with strain rates as low as $10^{4}$/sec (corresponding to 0.01 shear strain per 1$\mu$sec). A robust elasticity is revealed that…
We analyze the stretching elasticity of a wormlike chain with a tension discontinuity resulting from a Hookean spring connecting its backbone to a fixed point. The elasticity of isolated semiflexible filaments has been the subject in a…
Collagen networks provide the main structural component of most tissues and represent an important ingredient for bio-mimetic materials for bio-medical applications. Here we study the mechanical properties of stiff collagen networks derived…
The rheological properties of biological tissues are core to processes such as cancer metastasis, wound healing and embryo development. The emergence of tissue and organ structures during morphogenesis requires the precise formation of…
The patterns arising from the differential swelling of gels are investigated experimentally and theoretically as a model for the differential growth of living tissues. Two geometries are considered: a thin strip of soft gel clamped to a…
Fiber-reinforcement is a universal feature of many biological tissues. It involves the interplay between fiber stiffness, fiber orientation, and the elastic properties of the matrix, influencing pattern formation and evolution in layered…
Many organisms exhibit branching morphologies that twist around each other and become entangled. Entanglement occurs when different objects interlock, creating complex and often irreversible configurations. This physical phenomenon is…
Living materials such as membranes, cytoskeletal assemblies, cell collectives and tissues can often be described as active solids -- materials that are energized from within, with elastic response about a well defined reference…
Elastic microphase separation refers to equilibrium patterns that form by phase separation in elastic gels. Recent experiments revealed a continuous phase transition from the homogeneous phase to a regularly patterned phase, whose period…
The shapes of epithelial tissues result from a complex interplay of contractile forces in the cytoskeleta of the cells in the tissue, and adhesion forces between them. A host of discrete, cell-based models describe these forces by assigning…
The response of a short DNA segment to bending is studied, taking into account the anisotropy in the bending rigidities caused by the double-helical structure. It is shown that the anisotropy introduces an effective nonlinear twist-bend…
We report temperature-responsive soft composites of semiflexible biopolymer networks (fibrin) containing dispersed microgel colloidal particles of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (pNIPAM) that undergo a thermodynamically driven de-swelling…
Disordered elastic networks provide a framework for describing a wide variety of physical systems, ranging from amorphous solids, through polymeric fibrous materials to confluent cell tissues. In many cases, such networks feature two widely…
Coupling between axial and torsional degrees of freedom often modifies the conformation and expression of natural and synthetic filamentous aggregates. Recent studies on chiral single-walled carbon nanotubes and B-DNA reveal a reversal in…
Biopolymer networks are common in biological systems from the cytoskeleton of individual cells to collagen in the extracellular matrix. The mechanics of these systems under applied strain can be explained in some cases by a phase transition…