Related papers: Oscillations in molecular motor assemblies
This paper presents a rigorous analytical model of traffic dynamics on a circular track, demonstrating the emergence of standing oscillations resulting from microscopic driver behaviour, delay responses, and proximity pressure. Without…
Unlike most synthetic materials, biological materials often stiffen as they are deformed. This nonlinear elastic response, critical for the physiological function of some tissues, has been documented since at least the 19th century, but the…
Motor proteins drive persistent motion and self-organisation of cytoskeletal filaments. However, state-of-the-art microscopy techniques and continuum modelling approaches focus on large length and time scales. Here, we perform…
Biological assemblies such as chromosomes, membranes, and the cytoskeleton are driven out of equilibrium at the nanoscale by enzymatic activity and molecular motors. Similar non-equilibrium dynamics can be realized in synthetic systems,…
Traffic flow oscillations, including traffic waves, are a common yet incompletely understood feature of congested traffic. Possible mechanisms include traffic flow instabilities, indifference regions or finite human perception thresholds…
Based on symmetry consideration of migration and shape deformations, we formulate phenomenologically the dynamics of cell crawling in two dimensions. Forces are introduced to change the cell shape. The shape deformations induce migration of…
The motility of a fish keratocyte on a flat substrate exhibits two distinct regimes: the non-migrating and the migrating one. In both configurations the shape is fixed in time and, when the cell is moving, the velocity is constant in…
Nonlinear coupling between inter- and intra-element dynamics appears as a collective behaviour of elements. The elements in this paper denote symptoms such as a bacterium having an internal network of genes and proteins, a reactive droplet,…
Living cells are soft bodies of a characteristic form, but endowed with a capacity for a steady turnover of their structures. Both of these material properties, i.e. recovery of the shape after an external stress has been imposed and…
Contractility in animal cells is often generated by molecular motors such as myosin, which require polar substrates for their function. Motivated by recent experimental evidence of motor-independent contractility, we propose a robust…
Mechanochemical coupling was studied for two different types of myosin motors in cells: myosin V, which carries cargo over long distances by as a single molecule; and myosin II, which generates a contracting force in cooperation with other…
Self-oscillations underlie many natural phenomena such as heartbeat, ocean waves, and the pulsation of variable stars. From pendulum clocks to the behavior of animal groups, self-oscillation is one of the keys to the understanding of…
Motivated by the idea of using simple macroscopic examples to illustrate the physics of complex systems, we modify a historic experimental setup in which interacting floating magnets spontaneously self-assemble into ordered clusters. By…
Biomolecular condensates form by phase separation of biological polymers and have important functions in the cell $-$ functions that are inherently connected to their physical properties. A remarkable aspect of such condensates is that…
Local rearrangements are the elements of plastic deformation in an amorphous solid. In oscillatory shear, they can switch reversibly between two distinct configurations. While these repeating relaxations are typically considered in the…
Crystallography typically studies collections of point particles whose interaction forces are the gradient of a potential. Lifting this assumption generically gives rise in the continuum limit to a form of elasticity with additional moduli…
Living systems often exhibit internal driving: active, molecular processes drive nonequilibrium phenomena such as metabolism or migration. Active gels constitute a fascinating class of internally driven matter, where molecular motors exert…
A recent surge of discoveries has sparked significant interest in active systems where a particle moves autonomously in resonance with its self-generated wave field, leading to notable wave-mediated effects including new propulsion…
Transport of intracellular cargo is often mediated by teams of molecular motors that function in a chaotic environment under varying conditions. We show that the motors have unique steady state behavior which enables transport modalities…
Microscopic biological systems operate far from equilibrium, are subject to strong fluctuations, and are composed of many coupled components with interactions varying in nature and strength. Researchers are actively investigating the…