Related papers: Enhancement of cargo processivity by cooperating m…
Active colloids and externally actuated semi-flexible filaments provide basic building blocks for designing autonomously motile micro-machines. Here, we show that a passive semi-flexible filament can be actuated and transported by attaching…
Eukaryotic cells possess motility mechanisms allowing them not only to self-propel but also to exert forces on obstacles (to push) and to carry cargoes (to pull). To study the inherent asymmetry between active pushing and pulling we model a…
We develop a stochastic kinetic model of a pre-formed attachment of a mictrotuble (MT) with a cell cortex, in which the MT is tethered to the cell by a group of active motor proteins. Such an attachment is a particularly unique case of…
Intracellular transport is vital for the proper functioning and survival of a cell. Cargo (proteins, vesicles, organelles, etc.) is transferred from its place of creation to its target locations via molecular motor assisted transport along…
We analyze theoretically the effects of excluded-volume interactions between motors on the dynamics of a cargo driven by multiple motors. The model considered shares many commons with other recently proposed in the literature, with the…
We consider the dynamics of a rigid filament in a motor protein assay under external loading. The motor proteins are modeled as active harmonic linkers with tail ends immobilized on a substrate. Their heads attach to the filament…
Many cellular processes rely on the cell's ability to transport material to and from the nucleus. Networks consisting of many microtubules and actin filaments are key to this transport. Recently, the inhibition of intracellular transport…
Recent experiments demonstrate that molecular motors from the Myosin II family serve as cross-links inducing active tension in the cytoskeletal network. Here we revise the Brownian ratchet model, previously studied in the context of active…
Molecular motors and cytoskeletal filaments work collectively most of the time under opposing forces. This opposing force may be due to cargo carried by motors or resistance coming from the cell membrane pressing against the cytoskeletal…
Catalysis-driven synthetic molecular motors operate in a loose mechanochemical coupling regime, one in which a decomposition of a fuel molecule does not reliably produce a forward step. In that regime, stochastic backward steps can…
We propose a mechanism of cell motility which is based on contraction and does not require protrusion. The contraction driven translocation of a cell is due to internal flow of the cytoskeleton generated by molecular motors. Each motor…
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…
Actomyosin networks are major structural components of the cell. They provide mechanical integrity and allow dynamic remodeling of eukaryotic cells, self-organizing into the diverse patterns essential for development. We provide a…
We investigate the nonequilibrium dynamics of semiflexible polymers driven by motor proteins (MPs) in two-dimensional motility assays under harmonic confinement. Using a coarse-grained agent-based model that incorporates stochastic motor…
Intracellular transport is an essential function in eucaryotic cells, facilitated by motor proteins - proteins converting chemical energy into kinetic energy. It is known that motor proteins work in teams enabling unidirectional and…
We derive a model describing spatio-temporal organization of an array of microtubules interacting via molecular motors. Starting from a stochastic model of inelastic polar rods with a generic anisotropic interaction kernel we obtain a set…
Molecular-motor generated active stresses drive the cytoskeleton away from equilibrium, endowing it with tunable mechanical properties that are essential for diverse functions such as cell division and motility[1-5]. Designing analogous…
Motivated by recent experimental results for the step sizes of dynein motor proteins, we develope a cellular automata model for intra-cellular traffic of dynein motors incorporating special features of the hindrance-dependent step size of…
Bidirectional variants of stochastic many particle models for transport by molecular motors show a strong tendency to form macroscopic clusters on static lattices. Inspired by the fact that the microscopic tracks for molecular motors are…
In living cells, molecular motors convert chemical energy into mechanical work. Its thermodynamic energy efficiency, i.e. the ratio of output mechanical work to input chemical energy, is usually high. However, using two-state models, we…