Related papers: Crowding of molecular motors determines microtubul…
The cytoplasm of a living cell is crowded with several macromolecules of different shapes and sizes. Molecular diffusion in such a medium becomes anomalous due to the presence of macromolecules and diffusivity is expected to decrease with…
We present a model of an ATP-fueled molecular machine which push a polymer through a pore channel. The machine acts between two levels (working-waiting), and the working one remains active for a fixed time giving a constant force. The…
Many natural and industrial processes rely on constrained transport, such as proteins moving through cells, particles confined in nanocomposite materials or gels, individuals in highly dense collec- tives and vehicular traffic conditions.…
Kinesin motors can induce a buckling instability in a microtubule with a fixed minus end. Here we show that by modifying the surface with a protein-repellent functionalization and using clusters of kinesin motors, the microtubule can…
We study a model of synthetic molecular motor - a [3]-catenane consisting of two small macrocycles mechanically interlocked with a bigger one - subjected to a time-dependent driving using stochastic thermodynamics. The model presents…
KIF1A kinesins are single-headed motor proteins which move on cylindrical nano-tubes called microtubules (MT). A normal MT consists of 13 protofilaments on which the equispaced motor binding sites form a periodic array. The collective…
We model the effects of confinement on the stable self-organized patterns obtained in the non-equilibrium steady states of mixtures of molecular motors and microtubules. In experiments [Nedelec et al. Nature, 389, 305 (1997); Surrey et al.,…
The cytoskeleton relies on diverse populations of motors, filaments, and binding proteins acting in concert to enable non-equilibrium processes ranging from mitosis to chemotaxis. Its versatile reconfigurability, programmed by interactions…
The composite cytoskeleton, comprising interacting networks of semiflexible actin and rigid microtubules, actively generates forces and restructures using motor proteins such as myosins to enable key mechanical processes including cell…
The collective behavior of chemically propelled sphere-dimer motors made from linked catalytic and noncatalytic spheres in a quasi-two-dimensional confined geometry is studied using a coarse-grained microscopic dynamical model. Chemical…
The intracellular transport process plays an important role in delivering essential materials throughout branched geometries of neurons for their survival and function. Many neurodegenerative diseases have been associated with the…
In active matter systems, self-propelled particles can self-organize to undergo collective motion, leading to persistent dynamical behavior out of equilibrium. In cells, cytoskeletal filaments and motor proteins self-organize into complex…
Fueled by the hydrolysis of ATP, the motor protein kinesin literally walks on two legs along the biopolymer microtubule. The number of accidental backsteps that kinesin takes appears to be much larger than what one would expect given the…
Spindles are self-organized microtubule-based structures that segregate chromosomes during cell division. The mass of the spindle is controlled by the balance between microtubule turnover and nucleation. The mechanisms that control the…
We propose a two-dimensional model for the organization of stabilized microtubules driven by molecular motors in an unconfined geometry. In this model two kinds of dynamics are competing. The first one is purely diffusive, with an…
Active stresses, which are collectively generated by the motion of energy-consuming rod-like constituents, generate chaotic autonomous flows. Controlling active stresses in space and time is an essential prerequisite for controlling the…
A statistical mechanical theory is presented to predict the effects of macromolecular crowding on protein association equilibria, accounting for both excluded volume and attractive interactions between proteins and crowding molecules.…
Polymer translocation in crowded environments is a ubiquitous phenomenon in biological systems. We studied polymer translocation through a pore in free, one-sided (asymmetric), and two-sided (symmetric) crowded environments. Extensive…
Most models designed to study the bidirectional movement of cargos as they are driven by molecular motors rely on the idea that motors of different polarities can be coordinated by external agents if arranged into a motor-cargo complex to…
Investigation of protein self-assembly processes is important for the understanding of the growth processes of functional proteins as well as disease-causing amyloids. Inside cells, intrinsic molecular fluctuations are so high that they…