Related papers: Growth Velocities of Branched Actin Networks
The actin cytoskeleton of adherent tissue cells often condenses into filament bundles contracted by myosin motors, so-called stress fibers, which play a crucial role in the mechanical interaction of cells with their environment. Stress…
We propose and study a model of traffic in communication networks. The underlying network has a structure that is tunable between a scale-free growing network with preferential attachments and a random growing network. To model realistic…
The mechanical properties of polymer gels based on cytoskeleton proteins (e.g. actin) have been studied extensively due to their significant role in biological cell motility and in maintaining the cell's structural integrity. Microrheology…
The polymerization dynamics of double-stranded polymers, such as actin filaments, is investigated theoretically using simple chemical kinetic models that explicitly take into account some microscopic details of the polymer structure and the…
We study the relative importance of "top-speed" (long-term growth rate) and "acceleration" (how quickly the long-term growth rate can be reached) in the evolutionary race to increase population size. We observe that fitness alone does not…
The selective etching of carbon nanotubes has been widely explored as a post-synthetic route for enriching semiconducting species. As nanoelectronic applications increasingly demand pure semiconducting nanotubes for use in field-effect…
In studying network growth, the conventional approach is to devise a growth mechanism, quantify the evolution of a statistic or distribution (such as the degree distribution), and then solve the equations in the steady state (the…
Spreading on networks is influenced by a number of factors including different parts of the inter-event time distribution (IETD), the topology of the network and non-stationarity. In order to understand the role of these factors we study…
The actin cytoskeleton is a semiflexible biopolymer network whose morphology is controlled by a wide range of biochemical and physical factors. Actin is known to undergo a phase transition from a single-filament state to a bundled state by…
We discuss the characteristics of the patterns of the vascular networks in a mathematical model for angiogenesis. Based on recent in vitro experiments, this mathematical model assumes that the elongation and bifurcation of blood vessels…
We study kinetic theories for isotropic, two-dimensional grain boundary networks which evolve by curvature flow. The number densities $f_s(x,t)$ for $s$-sided grains, $s =1,2,\ldots$, of area $x$ at time $t$, are modeled by kinetic…
Density dependence is important in the ecology and evolution of microbial and cancer cells. Typically, we can only measure net growth rates, but the underlying density-dependent mechanisms that give rise to the observed dynamics can…
Cell spreading and motility on an adhesive substrate are driven by the active physical forces generated by the actin cytoskeleton. We have recently shown that coupling curved membrane complexes to protrusive forces, exerted by the actin…
We propose a theoretical model for branching instabilities in 2-dimensional fracture, offering predictions for when crack branching occurs, how multiple cracks develop, and what is the geometry of multiple branches. The model is based on…
Current understanding of how contractility emerges in disordered actomyosin networks of non-muscle cells is still largely based on the intuition derived from earlier works on muscle contractility. This view, however, largely overlooks the…
Understanding how wakes interact with wind turbine blades under varying operating and inflow conditions is essential for improving fatigue prediction and performance assessment in increasingly dense wind farms. We present an experimental…
The actin cytoskeleton is composed of multiple networks which are specialized for several processes such as cell motility or cell division. Each of these networks are composed of organized actin microfilaments which are decorated with…
The actomyosin cytoskeleton, a protein assembly comprising actin fibers and the myosin molecular motor, drives various cellular dynamics through contractile force generation at high densities. However, the relationship between the density…
Living cells adapt and respond actively to the mechanical properties of their environment. In addition to biochemical mechanotransduction, evidence exists for a myosin-dependent, purely mechanical sensitivity to the stiffness of the…
The growth of viscous two-dimensional lipid domains in contact with a viscoelastic actin network was recently shown to exhibit unusual lipid domain ripening due to the geometry and anisotropy of the actin network [Arnold & Takatori.…