Related papers: Molecular motors: design, mechanism and control
Particles moving in oscillating potential with broken mirror symmetry are considered. We calculate their energetic efficiency, when acting as molecular motors carrying a load against external force. It is shown that interaction between…
Computation of biological processes creates great promise for everyday life and great challenges for physical scientists. Simulations of molecular dynamics appeal to biologists as a natural extension of structural biology. Once biologists…
Biomolecular systems like molecular motors or pumps, transcription and translation machinery, and other enzymatic reactions can be described as Markov processes on a suitable network. We show quite generally that in a steady state the…
Computational molecular design -- the endeavor to design molecules, with various missions, aided by machine learning and molecular dynamics approaches, has been widely applied to create valuable new molecular entities, from small molecule…
Molecular communication, as implied by its name, uses molecules as information carriers for communication between objects. It has an advantage over traditional electromagnetic-wave-based communication in that molecule-based systems could be…
Machines enabled the Industrial Revolution and are central to modern technological progress: A machine's parts transmit forces, motion, and energy to one another in a predetermined manner. Today's engineering frontier, building artificial…
Active particles contain internal degrees of freedom with the ability to take in and dissipate energy and, in the process, execute systematic movement. Examples include all living organisms and their motile constituents such as molecular…
Like their larger micron-scale counterparts, {\AA}ngstr\"om-scale chemically self-propelled motors use asymmetric catalytic activity to produce self-generated concentration gradients that lead to directed motion. Unlike their micron-scale…
A design for a pump is suggested which is based on well-known peristaltic pumps. In order to simply describe the operation of the proposed pump, an innovative interpretation of low Reynolds number swimmers is presented and thereafter a…
Cell motility in viscous fluids is ubiquitous and affects many biological processes, including reproduction, infection, and the marine life ecosystem. Here we review the biophysical and mechanical principles of locomotion at the small…
Accompanied by the development of microfabrication techniques, such as MEMS and micro-TAS, there has been increasing interests on the methodology to generate a desired motion on a micro object in a solution environment. It is well know that…
Synthesis of protein molecules in a cell are carried out by ribosomes. A ribosome can be regarded as a molecular motor which utilizes the input chemical energy to move on a messenger RNA (mRNA) track that also serves as a template for the…
Inspired by dimeric motor proteins capable of undergoing transportation in living cells, significant efforts have been expended to the fabrication of track-walking nanomotors possessing two foot-like components that each can bind or detach…
Dynamics of molecular motor dimers, consisting of rigidly bound particles that move along two parallel lattices and interact with underlying molecular tracks, is investigated theoretically by analyzing discrete-state stochastic…
Quantifying the flow of energy within and through fluctuating nanoscale systems poses a significant challenge to understanding microscopic biological machines. A common approach involves coarse-graining, which allows a simplified…
Biophysicists and structural biologists increasingly acknowledge the role played by the mechanical properties of macromolecules as a critical element in many biological processes. This change has been brought about, in part, by the advent…
Enzymes are nano-scale machines that have evolved to drive chemical reactions out of equilibrium in the right place at the right time. Given the complexity and specificity of enzymatic function, bottom-up design of enzymes presents a…
Motility is an essential factor for an organism's survival and diversification. With the advent of novel single-cell technologies, analytical frameworks and theoretical methods, we can begin to probe the complex lives of microscopic motile…
Biological molecular machines are enzymes that simultaneously catalyze two processes, one donating free energy and second accepting it. Recent studies show that most native protein enzymes have a rich stochastic dynamics that often…
A new molecular motor is conceptually constructed from a double-walled carbon nanotube (DWNT) consisting of a long inner single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) and a short outer SWNT with different chirality. The interaction between inner and…