Actomyosin-mediated contractility is a highly conserved mechanism for generating
mechanical stress in animal cells and underlies muscle contraction, cell migration, cell …

This is an overview of theoretical approaches to semiflexible polymers and their networks.
Such semiflexible polymers have large bending rigidities that can compete with the entropic …

Living systems operate far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Enzymatic activity can induce
broken detailed balance at the molecular scale. This molecular scale breaking of detailed …

The minimal structural unit of a solid tumor is a single cell or a cellular compartment such as
the nucleus. A closer look inside the cells reveals that there are functional compartments or …

Filamin A (FLNa), the first non-muscle actin filament cross-linking protein, was identified in
1975. Thirty five years of FLNa research has revealed its structure in great detail, discovered …

Dynamic regulation of the filamentous actin (F-actin) cytoskeleton is critical to numerous
physical cellular processes, including cell adhesion, migration and division. Each of these …

Research on soft materials, including colloidal suspensions, glasses, pastes, emulsions,
foams, polymer networks, liquid crystals, granular materials, and cells, has captured the …

We describe an active polymer network in which processive molecular motors control
network elasticity. This system consists of actin filaments cross-linked by filamin A (FLNa) …

The actin cytoskeleton, a network of protein-polymers, is responsible for the mechanical
stability of cells. This biopolymer network is also crucial for processes that require spatial …

From the cell cytoskeleton to connective tissues, fibrous networks are ubiquitous in
metazoan life as the key promoters of mechanical strength, support and integrity. In recent …