相关论文: Chromatin: a tunable spring at work inside chromos…
Semiflexible polymers such as filamentous actin play a vital role in the mechanical behavior of cells, yet the basic properties of cross-linked F-actin networks remain poorly understood. To address this issue, we have performed numerical…
If a semiflexible polymer confined to a narrow channel bends around by 180 degrees, the polymer is said to exhibit a hairpin. The equilibrium extension statistics of the confined polymer are well understood when hairpins are vanishingly…
Active materials are capable of converting free energy into directional motion, giving rise to striking dynamical phenomena. Developing a general understanding of their structure in relation to the underlying non-equilibrium physics would…
We provide a clear energetic insight into the catastrophic nature of the so-called creasing and pull-in instabilities in soft electro-active elastomers. These phenomena are ubiquitous for thin electro-elastic plates and are a major obstacle…
In recent years molecular elasticity has emerged as an active area of research: there are experiments that probe mechanical properties of single biomolecules such as DNA and Actin, with a view to understanding the role of elasticity of…
An active loop-extrusion mechanism is regarded as the main out--of--equilibrium mechanism responsible for the structuring of megabase-sized domains in chromosomes. We developed a model to study the dynamics of the chromosome fibre by…
Instabilities in thin elastic sheets, such as wrinkles, are of broad interest both from a fundamental viewpoint and also because of their potential for engineering applications. Nematic liquid crystal elastomers offer a new form of control…
We introduce a model of thermalized conformations in space of RNA -or single stranded DNA- molecules, which includes the possibility of hairpin formation. This model contains the usual secondary structure information, but extends it to the…
We examine the elastic model of short circular DNA. We obtain analytic expressions for configurations, elastic energy, twist and linking number of our solutions. We find the onset of the plectonemic transition. We suggest ways to use our…
This paper aims at a comprehensive understanding on the novel elastic property of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) discovered very recently through single-molecule manipulation techniques. A general elastic model for double-stranded biopolymers…
We investigate the cyclic mechanical behavior in uniaxial tension of three different commercial thermoplastic polyurethane elastomers (TPU) often considered as a sustainable replacement for common filled elastomers. All TPU have similar…
The actin cortex of an animal cell is a thin polymeric layer attached to the inner side of the plasma membrane. It plays a key role in shape regulation and pattern formation on the cellular and tissue scale and, in particular, generates the…
Motivated by recent experiments showing nonlinear elasticity of in vitro networks of the biopolymer actin cross-linked with filamin, we present an effective medium theory of flexibly cross-linked stiff polymer networks. We model such…
In this letter, we investigate the geometrically tailorable elasticity in the twisting behavior of biomimetic scale-covered slender soft substrate. Motivated by our qualitative experiments showing a significant torsional rigidity increase,…
We develop further a statistical model coupling denaturation and chain conformations in DNA (Palmeri J, Manghi M and Destainville N 2007 Phys. Rev. Lett. 99 088103). Our Discrete Helical Wormlike Chain model takes explicitly into account…
Our understanding of how chromosomes structurally organize and dynamically interact has been revolutionized through the lens of long-chain polymer physics. Major protein contributors to chromosome structure and dynamics are condensin and…
We adapt the theory of anisotropic rubber elasticity to model cross-linked double-twist liquid crystal cylinders such as exhibited in biological systems. In mechanical extension we recover strain-straightening, but with an exact expression…
The Dynamic Template is applied to muscle cells, and is shown to provide a feedback mechanism that can co-ordinate the rearrangements of cytoskeletal proteins that accompany contraction
We consider the dynamics of a rigid filament in a motor protein assay under external loading. The motor proteins are modeled as active harmonic linkers with tail ends immobilized on a substrate. Their heads attach to the filament…
Chromonic nematics are lyotropic liquid crystals that have already been known for half a century, but have only recently raised interest for their potential applications in life sciences. Determining elastic constants and anchoring…