Related papers: Microtubule Length-Regulation by Molecular Motors
Kinesin and related motor proteins utilize ATP fuel to propel themselves along the external surface of microtubules in a processive and directional fashion. We show that the observed step-like motion is possible through time varying charge…
The motor cortex (MC) is often described as an autonomous dynamical system during movement execution. In an autonomous dynamical system, flexible movement generation depends on reconfiguring the initial conditions, which then unwind along…
A novel theoretical model of dynamic instability of a system of linear (1D) microtubules (MTs) in a bounded domain is introduced for studying the role of a cell edge in vivo and analyzing the effect of competition for a limited amount of…
The dynamics of molecular motors which occasionally detach from a heterogeneous track like DNA or RNA is considered. Motivated by recent single molecule experiments, we study a simple model for a motor moving along a disordered track using…
In the present paper we describe a model of nonlinear dynamics of microtubules (MT) assuming a single longitudinal degree of freedom per tubulin dimer. This is a longitudinal displacement of a dimer at a certain position with respect to the…
We analyse the dynamics of overlapping antiparallel treadmilling microtubules in the presence of crosslinking processive motor proteins that counterbalance an external force. We show that coupling the force-dependent velocity of motors and…
Molecular motors are in charge of almost every process in the life cycle of cells, such as protein synthesis, DNA replication, and cell locomotion, hence being of crucial importance for understanding the cellular dynamics. However, given…
Intracellular transport based on molecular motors and its regulation are crucial to the functioning of cells. Filamentary tracks of the cells are abundantly decorated with non-motile microtubule-associated proteins, such as tau. Motivated…
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…
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…
We study the dynamics of a tunable 2D active nematic liquid crystal composed of microtubules and kinesin motors confined to an oil-water interface. Kinesin motors continuously inject mechanical energy into the system through ATP hydrolysis,…
Motor enzymes are remarkable molecular machines that use the energy derived from the hydrolysis of a nucleoside triphosphate to generate mechanical movement, achieved through different steps that constitute their kinetic cycle. These…
The coupling between the depolymerization of microtubules (MTs) and the motion of the Dam1 ring complex is now thought to play an important role in the generation of forces during mitosis. Our current understanding of this motion is based…
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…
Microtubules (MTs) are filamentous protein polymers roughly 25 nm in diameter. Ubiquitous in eukaryotes, MTs are well known for their structural role but also act as actuators, sensors, and, in association with other proteins, checkpoint…
Movements of molecular motors on cytoskeletal filaments are described by directed walks on a line. Detachment from this line is allowed to occur with a small probability. Motion in the surrounding fluid is described by symmetric random…
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…
The traffic of molecular motors which interact through mutual exclusion is studied theoretically for half-open tube-like compartments. These half-open tubes mimic the shapes of axons. The mutual exclusion leads to traffic jams or density…
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…
Molecular machines described in this paper are meant to be such molecular systems that make use of conformational mobility (i.e. hindered rotation around chemical bonds and molecular construction deformations with formation and breakage of…