Related papers: Chromosome Oscillations in Mitosis
Polar polymer activity is a fundamental mechanism behind a large number of cellular dynamical processes. The number and location of the active sites on the polymer backbone play a central role in their dynamics and conformational…
In many adult tissues, stem cells and differentiated cells are not homogeneously distributed : stem cells are arranged in periodic "niches", and differentiated cells are constantly produced and migrate out of these niches. In this article,…
Recent experiments suggest that the interplay between cells and the mechanics of their substrate gives rise to a diversity of morphological and migrational behaviors. Here, we develop a Cellular Potts Model of polarizing cells on a…
Active forces occurring within cells can drive crucial biological processes that involve spontaneous organization and shape change, such as cell division. Motivated by recent in vitro experiments of nematic droplets of cytoskeletal…
Epithelia form protective barriers in multicellular organisms. To maintain homeostasis, they must be able to regenerate and heal damaged areas. This occurs through collective cell migration, during which finger-like protrusions commonly…
Dynamics of nucleosomes, the building blocks of the chromatin, has crucial effects on expression, replication and repair of genomes in eukaryotes. Beside constant movements of nucleosomes by thermal fluctuations, ATP-dependent chromatin…
We present a generic model of cell motility generated by acto-myosin contraction of the cell cortex. We identify analytically dynamical instabilities of the cortex and show that they trigger spontaneous cortical flows which in turn can…
The motility of adherent eukaryotic cells is driven by the dynamics of the actin cytoskeleton. Despite the common force-generating actin machinery, different cell types often show diverse modes of locomotion that differ in their shape…
Here we study a driven lattice gas model for microtubule depolymerizing molecular motors, where traffic jams of motors induce stochastic switching between microtubule growth and shrinkage. We term this phenomenon \enquote{traffic dynamic…
Most animal body plans have some degree of left-right asymmetry. This chirality at the tissue and organ level is often assumed to originate from the intrinsic handedness of biological molecules. How this handedness might be transferred from…
Single and collective cellular oscillations involving the actomyosin cytoskeleton have been observed in numerous biological systems. We show here that a generic model of a contractile material, which is turning over and contracts against an…
Inside cells, various cargos are transported by teams of molecular motors. Intriguingly, the motors involved generally have opposite pulling directions, and the resulting cargo dynamics is a biased stochastic motion. It is an open question…
Movement within eukaryotic cells largely originates from localized forces exerted by myosin motors on scaffolds of actin filaments. Although individual motors locally exert both contractile and extensile forces, large actomyosin structures…
Actomyosin networks are major structural components of the cell. They provide mechanical integrity and allow dynamic remodeling of eukaryotic cells, self-organizing into the diverse patterns essential for development. We provide a…
Can the different causes for disruption of intracellular transport be traced from the trajectories of the molecular motors on the cytoskeletal filaments? We will attempt to answer this important question in a Monte Carlo model of…
Chromosomal crossovers play a crucial role in meiotic cell division, as they ensure proper chromosome segregation and increase genetic variability. Experiments have consistently revealed two key observations across species: (i) the number…
We propose an alternative mechanism for intracellular cargo transport which results from motor induced longitudinal fluctuations of cytoskeletal microtubules (MT). The longitudinal fluctuations combined with transient cargo binding to the…
Polymers with active segments constitute prospective future materials and are used as a model for some biological systems such as chromatin. The directions of the active forces are typically introduced with temporal or spatial correlations…
Cell crawling requires the generation of intracellular forces by the cytoskeleton and their transmission to an extracellular substrate through specific adhesion molecules. Crawling cells show many features of excitable systems, such as…
We present a simple model for the bidirectional dynamics of actin bundles with alternating polarities in gliding assays with non-processive myosin motors. In the model, the bundle is represented as an elastic chain consisting of monomers…