English

Collective effects in intra-cellular molecular motor transport: coordination, cooperation and competetion

Biological Physics 2009-04-16 v1 Statistical Mechanics Subcellular Processes

Abstract

Molecular motors do not work in isolation {\it in-vivo}. We highlight some of the coordinations, cooperations and competitions that determine the collective properties of molecular motors in eukaryotic cells. In the context of traffic-like movement of motors on a track, we emphasize the importance of single-motor bio-chemical cycle and enzymatic activity on their collective spatio-temporal organisation. Our modelling strategy is based on a synthesis- the same model describes the single-motor mechano-chemistry at sufficiently low densities whereas at higher densities it accounts for the collective flow properties and the density profiles of the motors. We consider two specific examples, namely, traffic of single-headed kinesin motors KIF1A on a microtubule track and ribosome traffic on a messenger RNA track.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.physics/0605053,
  title  = {Collective effects in intra-cellular molecular motor transport: coordination, cooperation and competetion},
  author = {Debashish Chowdhury},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:physics/0605053},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

9 pages including LATEX text and 9 EPS figures