Related papers: Enhanced reaction kinetics in biological cells
Active gels perform key mechanical roles inside the cell, such as cell division, motion and force sensing. The unique mechanical properties required to perform such functions arise from the interactions between molecular motors and…
Cells and tissues exert forces and can actively change shape. This strikingly autonomous behavior is powered by the cytoskeleton, which includes an active gel of actin filaments, crosslinks, and myosin molecular motors. Although individual…
Intracellular components explore the cytoplasm via active motor-driven transport in conjunction with passive diffusion. We model the motion of organelles in narrow tubular cells using analytical techniques and numerical simulations to study…
Active adaptive matter has attracted considerable interest due to its rich, largely unexplained dynamics and its relevance to a wide range of synthetic and biological materials. An important subclass of such systems consists of active…
Interaction of electric fields with biological cells is indispensable for many physiological processes. Thermal electrical noise in the cellular environment has long been considered as the minimum threshold for detection of electrical…
Cells are strongly out-of-equilibrium systems driven by continuous energy supply. They carry out many vital functions requiring active transport of various ingredients and organelles, some being small, others being large. The cytoskeleton,…
Biomembranes wrapping cells and organelles are not only the partitions that separate the insides but also dynamic fields for biological functions accompanied by membrane shape changes. In this review, we discuss the spatiotemporal patterns…
Anomalously slow passive diffusion, $\langle \delta x^2(t)\rangle\simeq t^{\alpha}$, with $0<\alpha<1$, of larger tracers such as messenger RNA and endogenous submicron granules in the cytoplasm of living biological cells has been…
We propose an alternative mechanism for intracellular cargo transport which results from motor induced longitudinal fluctuations of cytoskeletal microtubules (MT). The longitudinal fluctuations combined with transient cargo binding to the…
The cytoskeleton is a model active matter system that controls diverse cellular processes from division to motility. While both active actomyosin dynamics and actin-microtubule interactions are key to the cytoskeleton's versatility and…
A living cell's interior is one of the most complex and intrinsically dynamic systems, providing an elaborate interplay between cytosolic crowding and ATP-driven motion, which controls cellular functionality. Here, we investigated two…
In this work we study the assisted translocation of a polymer across a membrane nanopore, inside which a molecular motor exerts a force fuelled by the hydrolysis of ATP molecules. In our model the motor switches to its active state for a…
Spontaneous directed motion, a hallmark of cell biology, is unusual in classical statistical physics. Here we study, using both numerical and analytical methods, organized motion in models of the cytoskeleton in which constituents are…
Active gels made of cytoskeletal proteins are valuable materials with attractive non-equilibrium properties such as spatial self-organization and self-propulsion. At least four typical routes to spatial patterning have been reported to date…
In biological systems, molecular-scale forces and motions are pivotal for enabling processes like motility, shape change, and replication. These forces and motions are organized, amplified, and transmitted across macroscopic scales by…
All living cells transport molecules and ions across membranes, often against concentration gradients. This active transport requires continual energy expenditure and is clearly a nonequilibrium process for which standard equilibrium…
We derive the constitutive equations of an active polar gel from a model for the dynamics of elastic molecules that link polar elements. Molecular binding kinetics induces the fluidization of the material, giving rise to Maxwell…
We propose a model for the dynamics of a probe embedded in a living cell, where both thermal fluctuations and nonequilibrium activity coexist. The model is based on a confining harmonic potential describing the elastic cytoskeletal matrix,…
The transport of macromolecules, such as DNA, through the cytoskeleton is critical to wide-ranging cellular processes from cytoplasmic streaming to transcription. The rigidity and steric hindrances imparted by the network of filaments…
Fueled by the hydrolysis of ATP, the motor protein kinesin literally walks on two legs along the biopolymer microtubule. The number of accidental backsteps that kinesin takes appears to be much larger than what one would expect given the…