Related papers: Theoretical Analysis of Dynamic Processes for Inte…
Highly specific spatiotemporal interactions between cognate molecular partners essentially sustain all biochemical transactions in the living matter. That such an exquisite level of accuracy may result from encountering forces solely driven…
We analyze theoretically the effects of excluded-volume interactions between motors on the dynamics of a cargo driven by multiple motors. The model considered shares many commons with other recently proposed in the literature, with the…
Motor proteins display widely different stepping patterns as they move on microtubule tracks, from the deterministic linear or helical motion performed by the protein kinesin to the uncoordinated random steps made by dynein. How these…
Physics students now have access to interactive molecular dynamics simulations that can model and animate the motions of hundreds of particles, such as noble gas atoms, that attract each other weakly at short distances but repel strongly…
We theoretically study the transport properties of self-propelled particles on complex structures, such as motor proteins on filament networks. A general master equation formalism is developed to investigate the persistent motion of…
Active gels perform key mechanical roles inside the cell, such as cell division, motion and force sensing. The unique mechanical properties required to perform such functions arise from the interactions between molecular motors and…
Kinesins are processive motor proteins that move along microtubules in a stepwise manner, and their motion is powered by the hydrolysis of ATP. Recent experiments have investigated the coupling between the individual steps of single kinesin…
Active particles contain internal degrees of freedom with the ability to take in and dissipate energy and, in the process, execute systematic movement. Examples include all living organisms and their motile constituents such as molecular…
We study one-dimensional hardcore lattice gases, with nearest-neighbor interactions, in the presence of an external potential barrier, that moves on the periodic lattice with a constant speed. We investigate how the nature of the…
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 dynamics of active matter driven by interacting molecular motors has a non-potential structure at the local scale. However, we show that there exists a quasi-potential effectively describing the collective self-organization of the…
Proteins are intricate molecular machines whose complexity arises from the heterogeneity of the amino acid building blocks and their dynamic network of many-body interactions. These nanomachines gain function when put in the context of a…
The biological cell exhibits a fantastic range of behaviors, but ultimately these are governed by a handful of physical and chemical principles. Here we explore simple theory, known for decades and based on the simple thermodynamics of…
The mechanics of cells is strongly affected by molecular motors that generate forces in the cellular cytoskeleton. We develop a model for cytoskeletal networks driven out of equilibrium by molecular motors exerting transient contractile…
Linear bio-molecular motors move unidirectionally along a track by coordinating several different processes, such as fuel (ATP) capture, hydrolysis, conformational changes, binding and unbinding from a track, and center-of-mass diffusion. A…
Intracellular transport of large cargoes, such as organelles, vesicles or large proteins, is a complex dynamical process that involves the interplay of ATP-consuming molecular motors, cytoskeleton filaments and the viscoelastic cytoplasm.…
We present a new kinetic equation for cell migration driven by mechanical interactions with the substrate, an effect not previously captured in kinetic models, and essential for explaining observed collective behaviors such as those in…
Biomolecular motors use free energy to drive a variety of cellular tasks, including the transport of cargo, such as vesicles and organelles. We find that the widely-used `constant-force' approximation for the effect of cargo on motor…
Driven particles in presence of crowded environment, obstacles or kinetic constraints often exhibit negative differential mobility (NDM) due to their decreased dynamical activity. We propose a new mechanism for complex many-particle systems…
Manipulating and coupling molecule gears is the first step towards realizing molecular-scale mechanical machines. Here, we theoretically investigate the behavior of such gears using molecular dynamics simulations. Within a nearly rigid-body…