相关论文: Contractile stresses in cohesive cell layers on fi…
We report the simultaneous characterization of time- and force-dependent mechanical properties of adherent cells in the physiologically relevant regime of large forces. We used magnetic tweezers to apply forces to magnetic beads bound to…
The mechanosensitivity of cells, which determines how they are able to respond to mechanical signals received from their environment, is crucial for the functioning of all biological systems. In experiments, cells placed on cyclically…
The measurement of cellular traction forces on soft elastic substrates has become a standard tool for many labs working on mechanobiology. Here we review the basic principles and different variants of this approach. In general, the…
Coordinated and cooperative motion of cells is essential for embryonic development, tissue morphogenesis, wound healing and cancer invasion. A predictive understanding of the emergent mechanical behaviors in collective cell motion is…
We construct a homogeneous, nonlinear elastic constitutive law, that models aspects of the mechanical behavior of inhomogeneous fibrin networks. Fibers in such networks buckle when in compression. We model this as a loss of stiffness in…
Cells exhibit qualitatively different behaviors on substrates with different rigidities. The fact that cells are more polarized on the stiffer substrate motivates us to construct a two-dimensional cell with the distribution of focal…
Mechanical coupling between a cell and substrate relies on focal adhesions, clusters of adhesion proteins linking stress fibers (bundles of actin proteins) inside the cell with surrounding tissue. Focal adhesions have been demonstrated to…
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…
Cells exert traction forces on compliant substrates and can induce surface instabilities that appear as characteristic wrinkling patterns. Here, we develop a mechanical description of cell-induced wrinkling on soft substrates using a thin…
The crawling motion of Dictyostelium discoideum on substrata involves a number of coordinated events including cell contractions and cell protrusions. The mechanical forces exerted on the substratum during these contractions have recently…
The sliding friction force exerted by stochastic linkers interacting with a moving filament is calculated. The elastic properties of the substrate on which the linkers are anchored are shown to strongly influence the friction force. In some…
We introduce a novel three-dimensional (3D) traction force microscopy (TFM) method motivated by the recent discovery that cells adhering on plane surfaces exert both in-plane and out-of-plane traction stresses. We measure the 3D deformation…
The conditions under which biological cells switch from a static to a motile state are fundamental to the understanding of many healthy and pathological processes. In this paper, we show that even in the presence of a fully symmetric…
Cohesive zone models do not consider the lateral contraction of adhesive layers under tensile loads. The constraint of the lateral contraction by the adherents which depends on the geometry of the adhesive layer has a major influence on the…
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 present a statistical mechanical study of stiff polymers, motivated by experiments on actin filaments and the considerable current interest in polymer networks. We obtain simple, approximate analytical forms for the force-extension…
Animal cells in tissues are supported by biopolymer matrices, which typically exhibit highly nonlinear mechanical properties. While the linear elasticity of the matrix can significantly impact cell mechanics and functionality, it remains…
Understanding cellular response to mechanical forces is immensely important for a plethora of biological processes. Focal adhesions are multi-molecular protein assemblies that connect the cell to the extracellular matrix and play a pivotal…
Actin filaments, crosslinkers and myosin molecular motors form contractile networks. For instance, the cell cortex is a thin network below the cell membrane ; contraction of the cell cortex allows cells to round up during cell division.…
A mathematical model is proposed for shape evolution and locomotion of fish epidermal keratocytes on elastic substrates. The model is based on mechanosensing concepts: cells apply contractile forces onto the elastic substrate, while cell…