Dynamical crossover from motor-dominated to drag-dominated transport in a minimal active transport network
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 and , with three independent seeds per condition, shows that increasing strongly suppresses mean transport speed while leaving the motor-bound fraction nearly unchanged. The mean load and motor force remain finite in the high- regime, indicating that motors remain mechanically active even when transport is suppressed. The dependence of transport speed on progressively disappears with increasing : the motor dominance ratio decreases from to , and the corresponding velocity difference decreases from to . 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