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The Role Of Vimentin–Nuclear Interactions In Persistent Cell Motility Through Confined Spaces, Sarthak Gupta, Alison E. Patteson, J. M. Schwarz
The Role Of Vimentin–Nuclear Interactions In Persistent Cell Motility Through Confined Spaces, Sarthak Gupta, Alison E. Patteson, J. M. Schwarz
Physics - All Scholarship
The ability of cells to move through small spaces depends on the mechanical properties of the cellular cytoskeleton and on nuclear deformability. In mammalian cells, the cytoskeleton is composed of three interacting, semi-flexible polymer networks: actin, microtubules, and intermediate filaments (IF). Recent experiments of mouse embryonic fibroblasts with and without vimentin have shown that the IF vimentin plays a role in confined cell motility. Here, we develop a minimal model of a cell moving through a microchannel that incorporates explicit effects of actin and vimentin and implicit effects of microtubules. Specifically, the model consists of a cell with an actomyosin …
Cell-Induced Confinement Effects In Soft Tissue Mechanics, Dawei Song, Jordan L. Shivers, Fred C. Mackintosh, Alison E. Patteson, Paul A. Janmey
Cell-Induced Confinement Effects In Soft Tissue Mechanics, Dawei Song, Jordan L. Shivers, Fred C. Mackintosh, Alison E. Patteson, Paul A. Janmey
Physics - All Scholarship
The mechanical properties of tissues play a critical role in their normal and pathophysiological functions such as tissue development, aging, injury, and disease. Understanding tissue mechanics is important not only for designing realistic biomimetic materials for tissue engineering and drug testing but also for developing novel diagnostic techniques and medical interventions. Tissues are heterogeneous materials consisting of cells confined within extracellular matrices (ECMs), both of which derive their structural integrity, at least in part, from networks of biopolymers. However, the rheology of purified reconstituted biopolymer networks fails to explain many key aspects of tissue mechanics. Notably, purified networks typically soften …