Related papers: Elastic properties of grafted microtubules
Thermal shape fluctuations of grafted microtubules were studied using high resolution particle tracking of attached fluorescent beads. First mode relaxation times were extracted from the mean square displacement in the transverse…
We use optical trapping to continuously bend an isolated microtubule while simultaneously measuring the applied force and the resulting filament strain, thus allowing us to determine its elastic properties over a wide range of applied…
Microtubules have been in biophysical focus for several decades. Yet the confusing and mutually contradicting results regarding their elasticity and fluctuations have shed some doubts on their present understanding. In this paper we expose…
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 transfer of mechanical signals through cells is a complex phenomenon. To uncover a new mechanotransduction pathway, we study the frequency-dependent transport of mechanical stimuli by single microtubules and small networks in a…
Motivated by recent experiments showing the buckling of microtubules in cells, we study theoretically the mechanical response of, and force propagation along elastic filaments embedded in a non-linear elastic medium. We find that, although…
We study the effects of thermal flucutations on thin elastic filaments with spontaneous curvature and torsion. We derive analytical expressions for the orientational correlation functions and for the persistence length of helices, and find…
We investigate the effect of thermal fluctuations on the mechanical properties of nanotubes by employing tools from statistical physics. For 2D sheets it was previously shown that thermal fluctuations effectively renormalize elastic moduli…
We study the shape, elasticity and fluctuations of the recently predicted (cond-mat/9510172) and subsequently observed (in numerical simulations) (cond-mat/9705059) tubule phase of anisotropic membranes, as well as the phase transitions…
We examine the effects of thermal fluctuations on thin elastic filaments with non-circular cross-section and arbitrary spontaneous curvature and torsion. Analytical expressions for orientational correlation functions and for the persistence…
We report detailed theoretical investigations of the micro-mechanics and bulk elastic properties of composites consisting of randomly distributed stiff fibers embedded in an elastic matrix in two and three dimensions. Recent experiments…
A way forward for high throughput fabrication of microcapsules with uniform size and mechanical properties was reported irrespective of the kinetic process of shell assembly. Microcapsules were produced using lab-scale emulsification…
Elastic wave dispersion is studied in an octet truss lattice and compared with a designed rib lattice known to exhibit strong Cosserat elastic effects. Dispersion entails variation of wave speed with frequency. The phenomenon is…
The persistence length of macromolecules is one of their basic characteristics, describing their intrinsic local stiffness. However, it is difficult to extract this length from physical properties of the polymers, different recipes may give…
We study the over-damped dynamics of individual one-dimensional elastic filaments subjected to a chiral active force which propels each point of the filament at a fixed angle relative to the tangent vector of the filament at that point.…
Thermal fluctuations of microtubules (MTs) and other cytoskeletal filaments govern to a great extent the complex rheological properties of the cytoskeleton in eukaryotic cells. In recent years, much effort has been put into capturing the…
We investigate the transport of elastic active filaments in two-dimensional turbulence, focusing on how propulsion geometry and elasticity determine vortex trapping and transport. Using a bead-spring model with activity applied at the…
We propose an approach to measure surface elastic constants of soft solids. Generally, this requires one to probe interfacial mechanics at around the elastocapillary length scale, which is typically microscopic. Deformations of microscopic…
Gas molecules trapped between graphene and various substrates in the form of bubbles are observed experimentally. The study of these bubbles is useful in determining the elastic and mechanical properties of graphene, adhesion energy between…
We derive a reduced quasi-one-dimensional theory of geometrically frustrated elastic ribbons. Expressed in terms of geometric properties alone, it applies to ribbons over a wide range of scales, allowing the study of their elastic…