Related papers: Molecular motors: design, mechanism and control
Motor-proteins are responsible for transport inside cells. Harnessing their activity is key towards developing new nano-technologies, or functional biomaterials. Cytoskeleton-like networks, recently tailored in vitro, result from the…
The movement of motor particles consisting of one or several molecular motors bound to a cargo particle is studied theoretically. The particles move on patterns of immobilized filaments. Several patterns are described for which the motor…
Inside cells, various cargos are transported by teams of molecular motors. Intriguingly, the motors involved generally have opposite pulling directions, and the resulting cargo dynamics is a biased stochastic motion. It is an open question…
Synthetic nanomotors powered by chemical reactions have been designed to act as vehicles for active cargo transport, drug delivery as well as a variety of other uses. Collections of such motors, acting in consort, can self-assemble to form…
The biological cell exhibits a fantastic range of behaviors, but ultimately these are governed by a handful of physical and chemical principles. Here we explore simple theory, known for decades and based on the simple thermodynamics of…
The generation of unidirectional motion has been a long-standing challenge in engineering of molecular motors and, more generally, machines. A molecular motor is characterized by a set of low energy states that differ in their…
We have developed a two dimensional stochastic molecular dynamics model for the description of intra cellular collective motion of bio motors, in particular Kinesins, on a microtubular track. The model is capable or reproducing the…
Cells accomplish diverse functions using the same molecular building blocks, from setting up cytoplasmic flows to generating mechanical forces. In particular, transitions between these non-equilibrium states are triggered by regulating the…
While mechanobiology has demonstrated that precise control over mechanical properties at the whole-cell level is crucial for many biological functions, comparatively little attention has been paid to the intracellular mechanical properties.…
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are weaving their way into the fabric of society, where they are playing a crucial role in numerous facets of our lives. As we witness the increased deployment of AI and ML in various…
The biomolecules in and around a living cell -- proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, carbohydrates -- continuously sample myriad conformational states that are thermally accessible at physiological temperatures. Simultaneously, a given…
Despite significant fluctuation under thermal noise, biological machines in cells perform their tasks with exquisite precision. Using molecular simulation of a coarse-grained model and theoretical arguments we envisaged how kinesin, a…
Motor enzymes are remarkable molecular machines that use the energy derived from the hydrolysis of a nucleoside triphosphate to generate mechanical movement, achieved through different steps that constitute their kinetic cycle. These…
Active gels are a class of biologically-relevant material containing embedded agents that spontaneously generate forces acting on a sparse filament network. In vitro experiments of protein filaments and molecular motors have revealed a…
Properties of transport of molecular motors are investigated. A simplified model based on the concept of Brownian ratchets is applied. We analyze a stochastic equation of motion by means of numerical methods. The transport is systematically…
The miniaturization of gears towards the nanoscale is a formidable task posing a variety of challenges to current fabrication technologies. In context, the understanding, via computer simulations, of the mechanisms mediating the transfer of…
Chemical affinities are responsible for driving active matter systems out of equilibrium. At the nano-scale, molecular machines interact with the surrounding environment and are subjected to external forces. The mechano-chemical coupling…
We study a model of synthetic molecular motor - a [3]-catenane consisting of two small macrocycles mechanically interlocked with a bigger one - subjected to a time-dependent driving using stochastic thermodynamics. The model presents…
The kinesin superfamily of motor proteins is a major driver of anterograde transport of vesicles and organelles within eukaryotic cells via microtubules. Numerous studies have elucidated the step-size, velocities, forces, and navigation…
Molecular motors are essential components for the biophysical functions of the cell. Our current quantitative understanding of how multiple motors move along a single track is not complete; even though models and theories for single motor…