Related papers: Motor driven microtubule shape fluctuations - forc…
We study the time-dependent height fluctuations of an active membrane containing energy-dissipating pumps that drive the membrane out of equilibrium. Unlike previous investigations based on models that neglect either curvature couplings or…
Recent research has shown that motile cells can adapt their mode of propulsion to the mechanical properties of the environment in which they find themselves--crawling in some environments while swimming in others. The latter can involve…
Connecting the large-scale emergent behaviors of active materials to the microscopic properties of their constituents is a challenge due to a lack of data on the multiscale dynamics and structure of such systems. We approach this problem by…
We study equilibrium shapes and shape transformations of a confined semiflexible chain inside a soft lipid tubule using simulations and continuum theories. The deformed tubular shapes and chain conformations depend on the relative magnitude…
Intracellular transport of vesicular cargos, organelles, and other macromolecules is an essential process to move large items through a crowded, and inhomogeneous cellular environment. In an effort to dissect the fundamental effects of…
Intracellular transport processes driven by molecular motors can be described by stochastic lattice models of self-driven particles. Here we focus on bidirectional transport models excluding the exchange of particles on the same track. We…
Intracellular transport is mediated by molecular motors that pull cargos along cytoskeletal filaments. Many cargos move bidirectionally and are transported by two teams of motors which move into opposite directions along the filament. We…
Molecular motors are found throughout the cells of the human body, and have many different and important roles. These micro-machines move along filament tracks, and have the ability to convert chemical energy into mechanical work that…
We investigate the model of "reversible ratchet" with interacting particles, introduced by us earlier [Europhys. Lett. 84, 50009 (2008)]. We further clarify the effect of efficiency enhancement due to interaction and show that it is of…
Regulating physical size is an essential problem that biological organisms must solve from the subcellular to the organismal scales, but it is not well understood what physical principles and mechanisms organisms use to sense and regulate…
We propose a model for a molecular motor in a molecular electronic junction driven by a natural manifestation of Landauer's blowtorch effect. The effect emerges via the interplay of the electronic friction and diffusion coefficients, each…
Living cells move thanks to assemblies of actin filaments and myosin motors that range from very organized striated muscle tissue to disordered intracellular bundles. The mechanisms powering these disordered structures are debated, and all…
Vacancy defects in isotropic noncollinear antiferromagnets produce long-range spin textures. By developing a "magnetic elasticity theory", we demonstrate that a vacancy-induced readjustment in the spin configuration decays algebraically…
Using agent-based simulations of self-propelled particles subject to short-range repulsion and nematic alignment we explore the dynamical phases of a dense active material confined to the surface of a sphere. We map the dynamical phase…
Kinetics of dislocations is studied by means of computer simulation during intensive plastic deformation. The dynamical effect in the form of soliton-like wave of sharply disrupted interparticle bonds is observed. Along with it, micropores…
In the presence of ATP, molecular motors generate active force dipoles that drive suspensions of protein filaments far from thermodynamic equilibrium, leading to exotic dynamics and pattern formation. Microscopic modelling can help to…
We report the study of a new experimental granular Brownian motor, inspired to the one published in [Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 248001 (2010)], but different in some ingredients. As in that previous work, the motor is constituted by a rotating…
Cells modify their volume in response to changes in osmotic pressure but it is usually assumed that other active shape variations do not involve significant volume fluctuations. Here we report experiments demonstrating that water transport…
Analytical formulas for effective drift, diffusivity, run times, and run lengths are derived for an intracellular transport system consisting of a cargo attached to two cooperative but not identical molecular motors (for example, kinesin-1…
Self-propulsion and navigation due to the sensing of environmental conditions - such as durotaxis and chemotaxis - are remarkable properties of biological cells that cannot be reproduced by single-component self-propelled particles. We…