Related papers: Collision induced spatial organization of microtub…
Building structures with hierarchical order through the self-assembly of smaller blocks is not only a prerogative of nature, but also a strategy to design artificial materials with tailored functions. We explore in simulation the…
The collective motion of interacting self-driven particles describes many types of coordinated dynamics and self-organisation. Prominent examples are alignment or lane formation which can be observed alongside other ordered structures and…
Microtubules are highly regulated dynamic elements of the cytoskeleton of eukaryotic cells. One of the regulation mechanisms observed in living cells is the severing by the proteins katanin and spastin. We introduce a model for the dynamics…
Buckling instabilities driven by tissue growth underpin key developmental events such as the folding of the brain. Tissue growth is disordered due to cell-to-cell variability, but the effects of this variability on buckling are unknown.…
The physics of micron-scale biological colonies usually benefits from different out-of-equilibrium sources. In bacterial colonies and cellular tissues, the growth process is among the important active sources that determine the dynamics. In…
Context: Star clusters form within giant molecular clouds that are strongly altered by the feedback action of the massive stars, but the cluster still remains embedded in a dense, highly turbulent medium and interactions with ambient…
We investigate the emergence of global alignment in colonies of dividing rod-shaped cells under confinement. Using molecular dynamics simulations and continuous modeling, we demonstrate that geometrical anisotropies in the confining…
A common mechanism for intracellular transport is the use of controlled deformations of the membrane to create spherical or tubular buds. While the basic physical properties of homogeneous membranes are relatively well-known, the effects of…
We study colonies of non-motile, rod-shaped bacteria growing on solid substrates. In our model, bacteria interact purely mechanically, by pushing each other away as they grow, and consume a diffusing nutrient. We show that mechanical…
In this study we formulate a theoretical approach, based on a Boltzmann-like kinetic equation, to describe pattern formation in two-dimensional mixtures of microtubular filaments and molecular motors. Following the previous work by Aranson…
The intentional growth of metastable surface structures of organic molecules adsorbed on inorganic substrates is a challenging task. It is usually unclear which kinetic mechanism leads to the metastable surface polymorph after a deposition…
Non-motile elongated bacteria confined in two-dimensional open micro-channels can exhibit collective motion and form dense monolayers with nematic order if the cells proliferate, i.e., grow and divide. Using soft molecular dynamics…
Microtubules are filamentous tubular protein polymers which are essential for a range of cellular behaviour, and are generally straight over micron length scales. However, in some gliding assays, where microtubules move over a carpet of…
Starting from the hypothesis that the tubulin dimer is a conformationally bistable molecule - fluctuating between a curved and a straight configuration at room temperature - we develop a model for polymorphic dynamics of the microtubule…
The cellular environment, characterized by its intricate composition and spatial organization, hosts a variety of organelles, ranging from membrane-bound ones to membraneless structures that are formed through liquid-liquid phase…
When a fluid carrying a passive solute flows quickly through porous media, three key macroscale transport mechanisms occur. These mechanisms are diffusion, advection and dispersion, all of which depend on the microstructure of the porous…
In vivo and in vitro cells rely on the support of an underlying biocompatible substrate, such as the extracellular matrix or a culture substrate, to spread and proliferate. The mechanical and chemical properties of such structures play a…
Capillarity-driven self-assembly at fluidic interfaces offers a scalable route to large, reconfigurable materials. Microscale particles with high horizontal-to-vertical aspect ratios become attractive building blocks for shape-directed…
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…
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…