Related papers: Crowding of molecular motors determines microtubul…
The collective dynamics of $N$ weakly coupled processive molecular motors are considered theoretically. We show, using a discrete lattice model, that the velocity-force curves strongly depend on the effective dynamic interactions between…
The stationary states of systems with many molecular motors are studied theoretically for uniaxial and centered (aster-like) arrangements of cytoskeletal filaments using Monte Carlo simulations and a two-state model. Mutual exclusion of…
We discuss effects of the stepping kinetics of molecular motors on their traffic behavior on crowded filaments using a simple two-state chemomechanical cycle. While the general traffic behavior is quite robust with respect to the detailed…
Many cellular processes are tightly connected to the dynamics of microtubules (MTs). While in neuronal axons MTs mainly regulate intracellular trafficking, they participate in cytoskeleton reorganization in many other eukaryotic cells,…
Cytoskeletal networks form complex intracellular structures. Here we investigate a minimal model for filament-motor mixtures in which motors act as depolymerases and thereby regulate filament length. Combining agent-based simulations and…
Two headed motor proteins, such as kinesin and dynein, hidrolyze environmental ATP in order to propel unidirectionally along cytoskeletal filaments such as microtubules. In the case of kinesin, protein heads bind primarily on the alpha…
Self-organization of kinesin-driven, microtubule-based 3D active fluids relies on the collective dynamics of single microtubules. However, the connection between macroscopic fluid flows and microscopic motion of microtubules remains…
In intracellular transports, motor proteins transport macromolecules as cargos to desired locations by moving on biopolymers such as microtubules. Recent experiments suggest that cargos that can associate motor proteins during their…
Three problems in the statistical mechanics of models for an assembly of molecular motors interacting with cytoskeletal filaments are reviewed. First, a description of the hydrodynamical behaviour of density-density correlations in…
The control of biopolymer length is mediated by proteins that localize to polymer ends and regulate polymerization dynamics. Several mechanisms have been proposed to achieve end localization. Here, we propose a novel mechanism by which a…
We present experimental and theoretical studies of the dynamics of molecular motors in microtubule arrays and asters. By solving a convection-diffusion equation we find that the density profile of motors in a two-dimensional aster is…
Theoretical analysis, which maps single molecule time trajectories of a molecular motor onto unicyclic Markov processes, allows us to evaluate the heat dissipated from the motor and to elucidate its dependence on the mean velocity and…
Biological transport is supported by collective dynamics of enzymatic molecules that are called motor proteins or molecular motors. Experiments suggest that motor proteins interact locally via short-range potentials. We investigate the…
We present a generic coarse-grained model to describe molecular motors acting on polymer substrates, mimicking, for example, RNA polymerase on DNA or kinesin on microtubules. The polymer is modeled as a connected chain of beads; motors are…
During the life cycle of bacterial cells the non-mixing of the two ring-shaped daughter genomes is an important prerequisite for the cell division process. Mimicking the environments inside highly crowded biological cells, we study the…
While the impact of crowding on the diffusive transport of molecules within a cell is widely studied in biology, it has thus far been neglected in traffic systems where bulk behavior is the main concern. Here, we study the effects of…
Connecting the large-scale emergent behaviors of active materials to the microscopic properties of their constituents is a challenge due to a lack of data on the multiscale dynamics and structure of such systems. We approach this problem by…
A theoretical model of stabilization of a microtubule assembly due to microtubule-associated-proteins(MAP) is presented. MAPs are assumed to bind to the microtubule filaments, thus preventing their disintegration following hydrolysis and…
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…
Conventional kinesin is a dimeric motor protein that transports membranous organelles toward the plus-end of microtubules (MTs). Individual kinesin dimers show steadfast directionality and hundreds of consecutive steps, yetthe detailed…