Related papers: Kinesin's backsteps under mechanical load
Motivated by experiments on single-headed kinesin KIF1A, we develop a model of intra-cellular transport by interacting molecular motors. It captures explicitly not only the effects of ATP hydrolysis, but also the ratchet mechanism which…
Recent fluorescence spectroscopy measurements of single-enzyme kinetics have shown that enzymatic turnovers form a renewal stochastic process in which the inverse of the mean waiting time between turnovers follows the Michaelis-Menten…
We examine the stochastic dynamics of two enzymes that are mechanically coupled to each other, e.g., through an elastic substrate or a fluid medium. The enzymes undergo conformational changes during their catalytic cycle, which itself is…
Understanding the slowest relaxations of complex systems, such as relaxation of glass-forming materials, diffusion in nanoclusters, and folding of biomolecules, is important for physics, chemistry, and biology. For a kinetic system, the…
ATP-hydrolysis is the basic energy source of many physiological processes, but there is a lack of knowledge regarding its biological role other than energy transfer and thermogenesis. Not all the energy released by ATP-hydrolysis could be…
We study the spontaneous ''sliding'' of histone spools (nucleosomes) along DNA as a result of thermally activated single base pair twist defects. To this end we map the system onto a suitably extended Frenkel-Kontorova model. Combining…
Microtubules are protein polymers that form "molecular highways" for long-range transport within living cells. Molecular motors actively step along microtubules to shuttle cellular materials between the nucleus and the cell periphery; this…
All living systems can function only far away from equilibrium, and for this reason chemical kinetic methods are critically important for uncovering the mechanisms of biological processes. Here we present a new theoretical method of…
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…
How molecular motors like Kinesin regulates the affinity to the rail protein in the process of ATP hydrolysis remains to be uncovered. To understand the regulation mechanism, we investigate the structural fluctuation of KIF1A in different…
Step pattern stability of the vicinal surfaces during growth was analyzed using various surface kinetic models. It was shown that standard analysis of the vicinal surfaces provides no indication on the possible step coalescence and…
Enzyme kinetics are cyclic. A more realistic reversible three-step mechanism of the Michaelis-Menten kinetics is investigated in detail, and three kinds of waiting cycle times $T$, $T_{+}$, $T_{-}$ are defined. It is shown that the mean…
Dynamics of nucleosomes, the building blocks of the chromatin, has crucial effects on expression, replication and repair of genomes in eukaryotes. Beside constant movements of nucleosomes by thermal fluctuations, ATP-dependent chromatin…
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…
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…
Enzyme-catalysed reactions involve two distinct timescales. There is a short timescale on which enzymes bind to substrate molecules to produce bound complexes, and a comparatively long timescale on which the complex is transformed into a…
We consider a simple model for the unfolding of RNA tertiary structure under dynamic loading. The opening of such a structure is regarded as a two step process, each corresponding to the overcoming of a single energy barrier. The resulting…
Fluctuations in the physical properties of biological machines are inextricably linked to their functions. Distributions of run-lengths and velocities of processive molecular motors, like kinesin-1, are accessible through single molecule…
The fate of every eukaryotic cell subtly relies on the exceptional mechanical properties of microtubules. Despite significant efforts, understanding their unusual mechanics remains elusive. One persistent, unresolved mystery is 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…