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Mechanical loading generally weakens adhesive structures and eventually leads to their rupture. However, biological systems can adapt to loads by strengthening adhesions, which is essential for maintaining the integrity of tissue and whole organisms. Inspired by cellular focal adhesions, we suggest here a generic, molecular mechanism that allows adhesion systems to harness applied loads for self-stabilization under non-equilibrium conditions -- without any active feedback involved. The mechanism is based on conformation changes of adhesion molecules that are dynamically exchanged with a reservoir. Tangential loading drives the occupation of some stretched conformation states out of equilibrium, which, for thermodynamic reasons, leads to association of further molecules with the adhesion cluster. Self-stabilization robustly increases adhesion lifetimes in broad parameter ranges. Unlike for catch-bonds, bond dissociation rates do not decrease with force. The self-stabilization principle can be realized in many ways in complex adhesion-state networks; we show how it naturally occurs in cellular adhesions involving the adaptor proteins talin and vinculin.
We develop a general theory for active viscoelastic materials made of polar filaments. This theory is motivated by the dynamics of the cytoskeleton. The continuous consumption of a fuel generates a non equilibrium state characterized by the generatio
A simple flashing ratchet model in two dimensions is proposed to simulate the hand-over-hand motion of two head molecular motors like kinesin. Extensive Langevin simulations of the model are performed. Good qualitative agreement with the expected beh
Respiration in bacteria involves a sequence of energetically-coupled electron and proton transfers creating an electrochemical gradient of protons (a proton-motive force) across the inner bacterial membrane. With a simple kinetic model we analyze a r
Contact inhibition is the process by which cells switch from a motile growing state to a passive and stabilized state upon touching their neighbors. When two cells touch, an adhesion link is created between them by means of transmembrane E-cadherin p
Membrane protein transporters alternate their substrate-binding sites between the extracellular and cytosolic side of the membrane according to the alternating access mechanism. Inspired by this intriguing mechanism devised by nature, we study partic