Related papers: Traffic by small teams of molecular motors
The output of a motor is work, while the output of a clock is information. Here it is discussed how a molecular motor can produce both, work and information, depending on the load. If the ratio of the backward and forward stepping rates of…
Many types of molecular motors have been proposed and synthesized in recent years, displaying different kinds of motion, and fueled by different driving forces such as light, heat, or chemical reactions. We propose a new type of molecular…
In cells, cytoskeletal filament networks are responsible for cell movement, growth, and division. Filaments in the cytoskeleton are driven and organized by crosslinking molecular motors. In reconstituted cytoskeletal systems, motor activity…
Along a microtubule, certain active motors propel themselves in one direction whereas others propel themselves in the opposite direction. For example, the cargo transporting motor proteins dynein and kinesin propel themselves towards the…
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…
We introduce a stochastic lattice gas model including two particle species and two parallel lanes. One lane with exclusion interaction and directed motion and the other lane without exclusion and unbiased diffusion, mimicking a micotubule…
We present a simple model of electrical transport through a metal-molecule-metal nanojunction that includes charging effects as well as aspects of the electronic structure of the molecule. The interplay of a large charging energy and an…
We propose a two-dimensional model for a complete description of the dynamics of molecular motors, including both the processive movement along track filaments and the dissociation from the filaments. The theoretical results on the…
Many biological functions are executed by molecular machines, which consume energy and convert it into mechanical work. Biological machines have evolved to transport cargo, facilitate folding of proteins and RNA, remodel chromatin and…
Living systems often exhibit internal driving: active, molecular processes drive nonequilibrium phenomena such as metabolism or migration. Active gels constitute a fascinating class of internally driven matter, where molecular motors exert…
Cells control the size and organization of biomolecular condensates formed by liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), but multiple mechanisms likely contribute to this control and remain to be fully elucidated. Here we propose a…
Cytoskeletal motor proteins are involved in major intracellular transport processes which are vital for maintaining appropriate cellular function. The motor exhibits distinct states of motility: active motion along filaments, and…
The cytoskeleton in eukaryotic cells plays several crucial roles. In terms of intracellular transport, motor proteins use the cytoskeletal filaments as a backbone along which they can actively transport biological cargos such as vesicles…
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…
We use stochastic computer simulations to study the transport of a spherical cargo particle along a microtubule-like track on a planar substrate by several kinesin-like processive motors. Our newly developed adhesive motor dynamics…
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…
The transport of molecules for chemical reactions is critically important in various cellular biological processes. Despite thermal diffusion being prevalent in many biochemical processes, it is unreliable for any sort of directed transport…
Here we generalize our previous model of molecular motors trafficking subdiffusing cargos in viscoelastic cytosol by (i) including mechanochemical coupling between cyclic conformational fluctuations of the motor protein driven by the…
Traffic-like collective movements are observed at almost all levels of biological systems. Molecular motor proteins like, for example, kinesin and dynein, which are the vehicles of almost all intra-cellular transport in eukayotic cells,…
Many biological processes are supported by special molecules, called motor proteins or molecular motors, that transport cellular cargoes along linear protein filaments and can reversibly associate to their tracks. Stimulated by these…