Papers Published

1. Lau, A. W. C. and Hoffman, B. D. and Davies, A. and Crocker, J. C. and Lubensky, T. C., Microrheology, stress fluctuations, and active behavior of living cells, Physical Review Letters, vol. 91 no. 19 (2003) .
   (last updated on 2011/11/11)

   Abstract:
   We report the first measurements of the intrinsic strain fluctuations of living cells using a recently developed tracer correlation technique along with a theoretical framework for interpreting such data in heterogeneous media with nonthermal driving. The fluctuations' spatial and temporal correlations indicate that the cytoskeleton can be treated as a course-grained continuum with power-law rheology, driven by a spatially random stress tensor field. Combined with recent cell rheology results, our data imply that intracellular stress fluctuations have a nearly 1/omega(2) power spectrum, as expected for a continuum with a slowly evolving internal prestress.

   Keywords:
   2-point microrheology dynamics