Related papers: Nucleocytoplasmic transport: a thermodynamic mecha…
Nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) mediate the exchange of materials between the nucleoplasm and cytoplasm, playing a key role in the separation of nucleic acids and proteins into their required compartments. The static structure of the NPC is…
Nuclear pore complexes are constantly confronted by large fluxes of macromolecules and macromolecular complexes that need to get into and out of the nucleus. Such bi-directional traffic occurring in a narrow channel can easily lead to…
Active cellular transport is a fundamental mechanism for protein and vesicle delivery, cell cycle and molecular degradation. Viruses can hijack the transport system and use it to reach the nucleus. Most transport processes consist of…
It has been observed that the growth of the nucleus and the cytoplasm is coordinated during cell growth, resulting in a nearly constant nuclear-to-cell volume ratio (N/C) throughout the cell cycle. Previous studies have shown that the N/C…
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…
Nucleocytoplasmic transport is essential for cellular function, presenting a canonical example of rapid molecular sorting inside cells. It consists of a coordinated interplay between import/export of molecules in/out the cell nucleus. Here,…
All materials enter or exit the cell nucleus through nuclear pore complexes (NPCs), efficient transport devices that combine high selectivity and throughput. A central feature of this transport is the binding of cargo-carrying soluble…
Recent studies have suggested that the Nuclear Pore Complex (NPC) plays a significant role in mechanotransduction. When a force is exerted, the NPC's diameter widens, leading to an increased molecular flux into the nucleus. In this study,…
Intracellular transport of DNA carriers is a fundamental step of gene delivery. We present here a theoretical approach to study generically a single virus or DNA particle trafficking in a cell cytoplasm. Cellular trafficking has been…
Protein chains of the (FG)$_n$ ($n \simeq$ 300) type cap the cytoplasmatic side of the nucleopore complex, which connects the nucleus to the remainder of an eukaryotic cell. We study the properties of three fundamental polymer models that…
Nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) are very selective filters that monitor the transport between the cytoplasm and the nucleoplasm. Two models have been suggested for the plug of the NPC. They are (i) it is a reversible hydrogel or (ii) it is a…
We present here a detailed description of the model of ran-driven nuclear transduction in living cells to be published elswere. The mathematical model presented is the first to account for the active transport of molecules along the…
There seems to exist significant similarities between a reactor system and a supply chain from collection to delivery. In the reactor case, neutrons are continuously produced and absorbed in nuclear fuel. In a supply system case, items are…
Internet, social media, neuronal or blood vessel are organized in complex networks. These networks are characterized by several quantities such as the underlying graph connectivity (topology), how they grow in time, scaling laws or by the…
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…
Nuclei import and export proteins, including cell cycle regulators. These import-export processes are modulated periodically by the cell cycle, for example due to the periodic assembly and breakdown of the nuclear envelope. As such,…
Virus trafficking is fundamental for infection success and plasmid cytosolic trafficking is a key step of gene delivery. Based on the main physical properties of the cellular transport machinery such as microtubules, motor proteins, our…
Intracellular transport is essential for maintaining proper cellular function in most eukaryotic cells, with perturbations in active transport resulting in several types of disease. Efficient delivery of critical cargos to specific…
Intracellular transport is based on molecular motors that pull cargos along cytoskeletal filaments. One motor species always moves in one direction, e.g. conventional kinesin moves to the microtubule plus end, while cytoplasmic dynein moves…
The transport of cargo particles which are pulled by several molecular motors in a cooperative manner is studied theoretically. The transport properties depend primarily on the maximal number, $N$, of motor molecules that may pull…