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We propose a novel mechanism of cell motility, which relies on the coupling of actin polymerization at the cell membrane to geometric confinement. We consider a polymerizing viscoelastic cytoskeletal gel confined in a narrow channel, and…
Locomotion is essential for living cells. It enables bacteria and algae to explore space for food, cancer to spread, and immune system to fight infections. Motile cells display trajectories of intriguing complexity, from regular (e.g.…
Kinesin-8 motor proteins destabilize microtubules. Their absence during cell division is associated with disorganized mitotic chromosome movements and chromosome loss. Despite recent work studying effects of kinesin 8s on microtubule…
Chemotaxis receptors in E. coli form clusters at the cell poles and also laterally along the cell body, and this clustering plays an important role in signal transduction. Recently, experiments using flourrescence imaging have shown that,…
Adhesion-independent migration is a prominent mode of cell motility in confined environments, yet the physical principles that guide such movement remain incompletely understood. We present a phase-field model for simulating the motility of…
Observations of single epidermal cells on flat adhesive substrates have revealed two distinct morphological and functional states, namely a non-migrating symmetric unpolarized state and a migrating asymmetric polarized state. These states…
Biological cells are able to adapt their behaviour in response to environmental cues. Durotaxis is a phenomenon in which cells adjust their migration depending on the mechanical properties of a surrounding substrate. Although durotaxis has…
The actin cortex is a thin layer of actin, myosin, and actin binding proteins that underlies the membrane of most animal cells. It is highly dynamic and can undergo remodelling on time-scales of tens of seconds thanks to protein turnover…
We extend a model for the morphology and dynamics of a crawling eukaryotic cell to describe cells on micropatterned substrates. This model couples cell morphology, adhesion, and cytoskeletal flow in response to active stresses induced by…
Cytoplasmic streaming, the persistent flow of fluid inside a cell, induces intracellular transport, which plays a key role in fundamental biological processes. In meiosis II mouse oocytes (developing egg cells) awaiting fertilisation, the…
Cytoskeletal motor proteins are involved in major intracellular transport processes which are vital for maintaining appropriate cellular function. The motor exhibits distinct states of motility: active motion along filaments, and…
The actin cytoskeleton of cells is in continuous motion due to both polymerization of new filaments and their contraction by myosin II molecular motors. Through adhesion to the substrate, such intracellular flow can be converted into cell…
Systems with two species of active molecular motors moving on (cytoskeletal) filaments into opposite directions are studied theoretically using driven lattice gas models. The motors can unbind from and rebind to the filaments. Two motors…
Microtubules self-organize to form part of the cellular cytoskeleton. They give cells their shape and play a crucial role in cell division and intracellular transport. Strikingly, microtubules driven by motor proteins reorganize into stable…
Regulating the stability of microtubule(MT)-kinetochore attachments is fundamental to avoiding mitotic errors and ensure proper chromosome segregation during cell division. While biochemical factors involved in this process have been…
The cell cortex is a thin layer beneath the plasma membrane that gives animal cells mechanical resistance and drives most of their shape changes, from migration, division to multicellular morphogenesis. It is mainly composed of actin…
Cell crawling crucially depends on the collective dynamics of the acto-myosin cytoskeleton. However, it remains an open question to what extent cell polarization and persistent motion depend on continuous regulatory mechanisms and…
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…
The effect of sequence heterogeneity on polynucleotide translocation across a pore and on simple models of molecular motors such as helicases, DNA polymerase/exonuclease and RNA polymerase is studied in detail. Pore translocation of RNA or…
Collective motion of cells is common in many physiological processes, including tissue development, repair, and tumor formation. Recent experiments have shown that certain malignant cancer cells form clusters in a chemoattractant gradient,…