arXiv subjects

M. Leonetti

Publications and source records attributed to M. Leonetti.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2022

Assessment of coupled bilayer-cytoskeleton modelling strategy for red blood cell dynamics in flow

The red blood cell (RBC) membrane is composed of a lipid bilayer and a cytoskeleton interconnected by protein junction complexes, allowing for potential sliding between the lipid bilayer and the cytoskeleton. Despite this biological reality, it is most often modelled as a single-layer model, a hyperelastic capsule or a fluid vesicle. Another approach involves incorporating the membrane's composite structure using double layers, where one layer represents the lipid bilayer and the other represents the cytoskeleton. In this paper, we computationally assess the various modelling strategies by analysing RBC behaviour in extensional flow and four distinct regimes that simulate RBC dynamics in shear flow. The proposed double-layer strategies, such as the vesicle-capsule and capsule-capsule models, account for the fluidity and surface incompressibility of the lipid bilayer in different ways. Our findings demonstrate that introducing sliding between the layers offers the cytoskeleton a considerable degree of freedom to alleviate its elastic stresses, resulting in a significant increase in RBC elongation. Surprisingly, our study reveals that the membrane modelling strategy for RBCs holds greater importance than the choice of the cytoskeleton's reference shape. These results highlight the inadequacy of considering mechanical properties alone and emphasise the need for careful integration of these properties. Furthermore, our findings fortuitously uncover a novel indicator for determining the appropriate stress-free shape of the cytoskeleton.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2021

Dynamics of pearling instability in polymersomes: the role of shear membraneviscosity and spontaneous curvature

The stability of copolymer tethers is investigated theoretically. Self-assembly of diblockor triblock copolymers can lead to tubular polymersomes which are known experimentallyto undergo shape instability under thermal, chemical and tension stresses. It leads to aperiodic modulation of the radius which evolves to assembly-line pearls connected by tinytethers. We study the contributions of shear surface viscosity and spontaneous curvatureand their interplay to understand the pearling instability. The performed linear analysisof stability of this cylinder-to-pearls transition shows that such systems are unstable if themembrane tension is larger than a finite critical value contrary to the Rayleigh-Plateau in-stability, an already known or if the spontaneous curvature is in a specific range whichdepends on membrane tension. For the case of spontaneous curvature-induced shape insta-bility, two dynamical modes are identified. The first one is analog to the tension-inducedinstability with a marginal mode. Its wavenumber associated to the most unstable modedecreases continuously to zero as membrane viscosity increases. The unexpected secondone has a finite range of unstable wavenumbers. The wavenumber of the most unstablemode tends to a constant as membrane viscosity increases. In this mode, its growth ratebecomes independent of the bulk viscosity in the limit of high membrane viscosity andbehaves as a pure viscous surface.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2020

Optical computation of a spin glass dynamics with tunable complexity

Spin Glasses (SG) are paradigmatic models for physical, computer science, biological and social systems. The problem of studying the dynamics for SG models is NP hard, i.e., no algorithm solves it in polynomial time. Here we implement the optical simulation of a SG, exploiting the N segments of a wavefront shaping device to play the role of the spin variables, combining the interference at downstream of a scattering material to implement the random couplings between the spins (the J ij matrix) and measuring the light intensity on a number P of targets to retrieve the energy of the system. By implementing a plain Metropolis algorithm, we are able to simulate the spin model dynamics, while the degree of complexity of the potential energy landscape and the region of phase diagram explored is user-defined acting on the ratio the P/N = \alpha. We study experimentally, numerically and analytically this peculiar system displaying a paramagnetic, a ferromagnetic and a SG phase, and we demonstrate that the transition temperature T g to the glassy phase from the paramagnetic phase grows with \alpha. With respect to standard in silico approach, in the optical SG interaction terms are realized simultaneously when the independent light rays interferes at the target screen, enabling inherently parallel measurements of the energy, rather than computations scaling with N as in purely in silico simulations.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2020

Artificial neural networks for 3D cell shape recognition from confocal images

We present a dual-stage neural network architecture for analyzing fine shape details from microscopy recordings in 3D. The system, tested on red blood cells, uses training data from both healthy donors and patients with a congenital blood disease. Characteristic shape features are revealed from the spherical harmonics spectrum of each cell and are automatically processed to create a reproducible and unbiased shape recognition and classification for diagnostic and theragnostic use.

q-bio.QM↗

arXiv2020

Shape transition and hydrodynamics of vesicles in tube flow

The steady motion and deformation of a lipid-bilayer vesicle translating through a circular tube in low Reynolds number pressure-driven flow are investigated numerically using an axisymmetric boundary element method. This fluid-structure interaction problem is determined by three dimensionless parameters: reduced volume (a measure of the vesicle asphericity), geometric confinement (the ratio of the vesicle effective radius to the tube radius), and capillary number (the ratio of viscous to bending forces). The physical constraints of a vesicle -- fixed surface area and enclosed volume when it is confined in a tube -- determine critical confinement beyond which it cannot pass through without rupturing its membrane. The simulated results are presented in a wide range of reduced volumes [0.6, 0.98] for different degrees of confinement; the reduced volume of 0.6 mimics red blood cells. We draw a phase diagram of vesicle shapes and propose a shape transition line separating the parachute-like shape region from the bullet-like one in the reduced volume versus confinement phase space. We show that the shape transition marks a change in the behavior of vesicle mobility, especially for highly deflated vesicles. Most importantly, high-resolution simulations make it possible for us to examine the hydrodynamic interaction between the wall boundary and the vesicle surface at conditions of very high confinement, thus providing the limiting behavior of several quantities of interest, such as the thickness of lubrication film, vesicle mobility and its length, and the extra pressure drop due to the presence of the vesicle. This extra pressure drop holds implications for the rheology of dilute vesicle suspensions. Furthermore, we present various correlations and discuss a number of practical applications.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2020

An isogeometric boundary element method for soft particles flowing in microfluidic channels

Understanding the flow of deformable particles such as liquid drops, synthetic capsules and vesicles, and biological cells confined in a small channel is essential to a wide range of potential chemical and biomedical engineering applications. Computer simulations of this kind of fluid-structure (membrane) interaction in low-Reynolds-number flows raise significant challenges faced by an intricate interplay between flow stresses, complex particles' interfacial mechanical properties, and fluidic confinement. Here, we present an isogeometric computational framework by combining the finite-element method (FEM) and boundary-element method (BEM) for an accurate prediction of the deformation and motion of a single soft particle transported in microfluidic channels. The proposed numerical framework is constructed consistently with the isogeometric analysis paradigm; Loop's subdivision elements are used not only for the representation of geometry but also for the membrane mechanics solver (FEM) and the interfacial fluid dynamics solver (BEM). We validate our approach by comparison of the simulation results with highly accurate benchmark solutions to two well-known examples available in the literature, namely a liquid drop with constant surface tension in a circular tube and a capsule with a very thin hyperelastic membrane in a square channel. We show that the numerical method exhibits second-order convergence in both time and space. To further demonstrate the accuracy and long-time numerically stable simulations of the algorithm, we perform hydrodynamic computations of a lipid vesicle with bending stiffness and a red blood cell with a composite membrane in capillaries. The present work offers some possibilities to study the deformation behavior of confining soft particles, especially the particles' shape transition and dynamics and their rheological signature in channel flows.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2011

A random laser tailored by directional stimulated emission

A disordered structure embedding an active gain material and able to lase is called random laser (RL). The RL spectrum may appear either like a set of sharp resonances or like a smooth line superimposed to the fluorescence. A recent letter accounts for this duality with the onset of a mode locked regime in which increasing the number of activated modes results in an increased inter mode correlation and a pulse shortening ascribed to a synchronization phenomenon. An extended discussion of our experimental approach together with an original study of the spatial properties of the RL is reported here.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2005

Co-transport-induced instability of membrane voltage in tip-growing cells

A salient feature of stationary patterns in tip-growing cells is the key role played by the symports and antiports, membrane proteins that translocate two ionic species at the same time. It is shown that these co-transporters destabilize generically the membrane voltage if the two translocated ions diffuse differently and carry a charge of opposite (same) sign for symports (antiports). Orders of magnitude obtained for the time and lengthscale are in agreement with experiments. A weakly nonlinear analysis characterizes the bifurcation.

q-bio.QM↗