Related papers: Microtubule depolymerization by the kinesin-8 moto…
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…
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…
Membrane tubes are important elements for living cells to organize many functions. Experiments have found that membrane tube can be extracted from giant lipid vesicles by a group of kinesin. How these motors cooperate in extracting the…
The cytoskeleton is an active composite of filamentous proteins that dictates diverse mechanical properties and processes in eukaryotic cells by generating forces and autonomously restructuring itself. Enzymatic motors that act on the…
Biomolecular motor proteins that generate forces by consuming chemical energy obtained from ATP hydrolysis are pivotal for organizing broad cytoskeletal structures in living cells. The control of such cytoskeletal structures benefits…
Kinesin and related motor proteins utilize ATP fuel to propel themselves along the external surface of microtubules in a processive and directional fashion. We show that the observed step-like motion is possible through time varying charge…
Mixtures of microtubules and molecular motors form active materials with diverse dynamical behaviors that vary based on their constituents' molecular properties. We map the non-equilibrium phase diagram of microtubules and tip-accumulating…
Motor-driven cytoskeletal remodeling in cellular systems can often be accompanied by a diffusive-like effect at local scales, but distinguishing the contributions of the ordering process, such as active contraction of a network, from this…
In nature interactions between biopolymers and motor proteins give rise to biologically essential emergent behaviours. Besides cytoskeleton mechanics, active nematics arise from such interactions. Here we present a study on 3D active…
The mitotic spindle partitions chromosomes during cell division by connecting the poles to kinetochores through microtubules (MTs). Their plus-ends, facing the chromosomes, exhibit dynamic instability, which is critical for proper…
Kinesin motors have been studied extensively both experimentally and theoretically. However, the microscopic mechanism of the processive movement of kinesin is still an open question. In this paper, we propose a hand-over-hand model for the…
We develop a general theory of microtubule (MT) deformations by molecular motors generating internal force doublets within the MT lattice. We describe two basic internal excitations, the S and V shape, and compare them with experimental…
We analyze experimental observations of microtubules undergoing small fluctuations about a "balance point" when mixed in solution of two different kinesin motor proteins, KLP61F and Ncd. It has been proposed that the microtubule movement is…
Kinesin-1 is an ATP-driven, two-headed motor protein that transports intracellular cargoes along microtubule. Based on recent experimental observations, we formulate a mechanochemical model for it, in which forward/backward/futile cycle of…
Microtubules are filamentous tubular protein polymers which are essential for a range of cellular behaviour, and are generally straight over micron length scales. However, in some gliding assays, where microtubules move over a carpet of…
Within living cells, the transport of cargo is accomplished by groups of molecular motors. Such collective transport could utilize mechanisms which emerge from inter-motor interactions in ways that are yet to be fully understood. Here we…
A microtubule (MT) is a hollow tube of approximately 25 nm diameter. The two ends of the tube are dissimilar and are designated as `plus' and `minus' ends. Motivated by the collective push and pull exerted by a bundle of MTs during…
We investigate the efficiency of systems of molecular motors operating at maximum power. We consider two models of kinesin motors on a microtubule: for both the simplified and the detailed model, we find that the many-body exclusion effect…
We investigate the dynamics of an active gel of bundled microtubules that is driven by clusters of kinesin molecular motors. Upon the addition of ATP, the coordinated action of thousands of molecular motors drives the gel to a highly…
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…