Related papers: Model for the unidirectional motion of a dynein mo…
Molecular motors perform active movements along cytoskeletal filaments and drive the traffic of organelles and other cargo particles in cells. In contrast to the macroscopic traffic of cars, however, the traffic of molecular motors is…
In vitro velocities of several cell types have been measured using computer controlled video microscopy, which allowed to record the cells' trajectories over several days. On the basis of our large data sets we show that the locomotion…
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…
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 transport by molecular motors along cytoskeletal filaments is studied theoretically in the presence of static defects. The movements of single motors are described as biased random walks along the filament as well as binding to and…
Trajectories of endosomes inside living eukaryotic cells are highly heterogeneous in space and time and diffuse anomalously due to a combination of viscoelasticity, caging, aggregation and active transport. Some of the trajectories display…
Inside cells of living organisms, actin filaments and microtubules self-assemble and dissemble dynamically by incorporating actin or tubulin from the cell plasma or releasing it into their tips' surroundings. Such reaction-diffusion systems…
The motility of cilia and flagella is driven by thousands of dynein motors that hydrolyze adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Despite decades of genetic, biochemical, structural and biophysical studies, some aspects of ciliary motility remain…
We propose a stochastic model for intracellular transport processes associated with the activity of molecular motors. This out-of-equilibrium model, based on a generalized Langevin equation, considers a particle immersed in a viscoelastic…
Cells move differently on substrates with different elasticities. In particular, the persistence time of their motion is higher on stiffer substrates. We show that this behavior will result in a net transport of cells directed up a…
A living cell actively generates traction forces on its environment with its actin cytoskeleton. These forces deform the cell elastic substrate which, in turn, affects the traction forces exerted by the cell and can consequently modify the…
We investigate the dynamics of a particle moving randomly along a disordered hetero-polymer subjected to rapid conformational changes which induce superdiffusive motion in chemical coordinates. We study the antagonistic interplay between…
Living cells display a remarkable capacity to compartmentalize their functional biochemistry. A particularly fascinating example is the cell nucleus. Exchange of macromolecules between the nucleus and the surrounding cytoplasm does not…
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…
Eukaryotic cells and intracellular pathogens such as bacteria or viruses utilize the actin polymerization machinery to propel themselves forward. Thereby, the onset of motion and choice of direction may be the result of a spontaneous…
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…
This paper proposes a simple model of anomalous diffusion, in which a particle moves with the velocity field induced by a single "dipole" (a doublet or a pair of source and sink), whose moment is modulated randomly at each time step. A…
The cytoskeleton is an important subsystem of cells that is involved for example in cell division and locomotion. It consists of filaments that are cross-linked by molecular motors that can induce relative sliding between filaments and…
We consider a discrete time particle model for kinetic transport on the two dimensional integer lattice. The particle can move due to advection in the $x$-direction and due to dispersion. This happens when the particle is free, but it can…
During asymmetric cell division, dynein generates forces, which position the spindle to reflect polarity and ensure correct daughter cell fates. The transient cortical localization of dynein raises the question of its targeting. We found…