Intermediate Mechanics

Rupture mechanics of vimentin intermediate filament tetramers

Together with the globular proteins microtubules and microfilaments, intermediate filaments are one of the three major components of the cytoskeleton in eukaryotic cells. It consists of a dimeric coiled-coil building block, assembled in a very precise, hierarchical fashion into tetramers, forming filaments with characteristic dimensions on the order of several micrometers. Here we focus on the ...

Lecture Notes on Intermediate Fluid Mechanics

Intermediate filaments: a dynamic network that controls cell mechanics

In humans the superfamily of intermediate filament (IF) proteins is encoded by more than 70 different genes, which are expressed in a cell- and tissue-specific manner. IFs assemble into approximately 10 nm-wide filaments that account for the principal structural elements at the nuclear periphery, nucleoplasm, and cytoplasm. They are also required for organizing the microtubule and microfilament...

The desmoplakin–intermediate filament linkage regulates cell mechanics

The translation of mechanical forces into biochemical signals plays a central role in guiding normal physiological processes during tissue development and homeostasis. Interfering with this process contributes to cardiovascular disease, cancer progression, and inherited disorders. The actin-based cytoskeleton and its associated adherens junctions are well-established contributors to mechanosens...

Plasticity of intermediate mechanics students’ coordinate system choice

ion: The case of Ben, J. Math. Behav. 113, 1 2002 . 6 T. Dreyfus and P. Tsamir, Ben’s consolidation of knowledge structures about infinite sets, J. Math. Behav. 23, 271 2004 . 7 P. Tsamir and T. Dreyfus, How fragile is consolidated knowledge?, J. Math. Behav. 24, 15 2005 . 8 M. S. Sabella and E. F. Redish, Knowledge organization and activation in physics problem solving, Am. J. Phys. 75, 1017 2...