English

Dynamical crossover from motor-dominated to drag-dominated transport in a minimal active transport network

Soft Condensed Matter 2026-07-07 v1

Abstract

Motor-driven intracellular transport is often described in terms of motor activity, but macroscopic transport also depends on how effectively motor-generated force is converted into coherent motion. Motivated by cytoplasmic streaming, a minimal active transport network is examined in which motor-driven transport competes with an effective slip-related dissipative resistance. The model is not intended as a quantitative reconstruction of Nitella cytoplasmic streaming, but as a minimal system for isolating the relation between motor activity, resistance, and transport output. A controlled scan over γSlip\gamma_{\mathrm{Slip}} and αm\alpha_m, with three independent seeds per condition, shows that increasing γSlip\gamma_{\mathrm{Slip}} strongly suppresses mean transport speed while leaving the motor-bound fraction nearly unchanged. The mean load and motor force remain finite in the high-γSlip\gamma_{\mathrm{Slip}} regime, indicating that motors remain mechanically active even when transport is suppressed. The dependence of transport speed on αm\alpha_m progressively disappears with increasing γSlip\gamma_{\mathrm{Slip}}: the motor dominance ratio decreases from R1.69R\approx1.69 to R1.01R\approx1.01, and the corresponding velocity difference decreases from 1.9 μm/s\sim1.9~\mu\mathrm{m/s} to 0.003 μm/s\sim0.003~\mu\mathrm{m/s}. These results indicate a dynamical crossover from motor-dominated to drag-dominated transport. The minimal model provides a compact physical scenario in which active force generation persists while its contribution to net transport is suppressed by increased effective dissipative resistance.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.05827,
  title  = {Dynamical crossover from motor-dominated to drag-dominated transport in a minimal active transport network},
  author = {Kazuhiko Mitsuhashi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.05827},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

7 pages, 3 figures. Submitted to Physical Review E