Related papers: Cytoskeletal network morphology regulates intracel…
Complex distribution networks are pervasive in biology. Examples include nutrient transport in the slime mold \emph{Physarum polycephalum} as well as mammalian and plant venation. Adaptive rules are believed to guide development of these…
Myosin motor proteins drive vigorous steady-state fluctuations in the actin cytoskeleton of cells. Endogenous embedded semiflexible filaments such as microtubules, or added filaments such as single-walled carbon nanotubes are used as novel…
The cellular cytoskeleton is an active material, driven out of equilibrium by molecular motor proteins. It is not understood how the collective behaviors of cytoskeletal networks emerge from the properties of the network's constituent motor…
We discuss a theoretical model for bidirectional cargo transport in biological cells, which is driven by teams of molecular motors and subject to thermal fluctuations. The model describes explicitly the directed motion of the molecular…
Cell migration is a fundamental process for life and is highly dependent on the dynamical and mechanical properties of the cytoskeleton. Intensive physical and biochemical crosstalk between actin, microtubules, and intermediate filaments…
Intracellular transport of DNA carriers is a fundamental step of gene delivery. We present here a theoretical approach to study generically a single virus or DNA particle trafficking in a cell cytoplasm. Cellular trafficking has been…
In this paper, we develop and analyze a minimal model for a 2D network of cross-linked actin filaments and myosin motors, representing the cortical cytoskeleton of eukaryotic cells. We implement coarse-grained representations of force…
In the cellular phenomena of cytoplasmic streaming, molecular motors carrying cargo along a network of microtubules entrain the surrounding fluid. The piconewton forces produced by individual motors are sufficient to deform long…
The transport by molecular motors along cytoskeletal filaments is studied theoretically in the presence of static defects. The movements of single motors are described as biased random walks along the filament as well as binding to and…
The neuronal networks in the mammals cortex are characterized by the coexistence of hierarchy, modularity, short and long range interactions, spatial correlations, and topographical connections. Particularly interesting, the latter type of…
The mechanical properties of the cell depend crucially on the tension of its cytoskeleton, a biopolymer network that is put under stress by active motor proteins. While the fibrous nature of the network is known to strongly affect the…
Activity can organize matter in unique configurations inaccessible to equilibrium systems, including a sundry of spiraling shapes seen in nature that range from galaxies to living tissues to fossilized stromatolites. How these dynamic yet…
Cells accomplish diverse functions using the same molecular building blocks, from setting up cytoplasmic flows to generating mechanical forces. In particular, transitions between these non-equilibrium states are triggered by regulating the…
Diffusive transport of small molecules within the internal structures of biological and synthetic material systems is complex because the crowded environment presents chemical and physical barriers to mobility. We explored this mobility…
In this paper a lattice model for diffusional transport of particles in the interphase cell nucleus is proposed. Dense networks of chromatin fibers are created by three different methods: randomly distributed, non-interconnected obstacles,…
We model analytically the dynamics of a cytoskeletal filament in a motility assay. The filament is described as rigid rod free to slide in two dimensions. The motor proteins consist of polymeric tails tethered to the plane and modeled as…
Many transport processes on networks depend crucially on the underlying network geometry, although the exact relationship between the structure of the network and the properties of transport processes remain elusive. In this paper we…
The compartmental model is a basic tool for studying signal propagation in neurons, and, if the model parameters are adequately defined, it can also be of help in the study of electrical or fluid transport. Here we show that the input…
Transport of rodlike particles in confinement environments of macromolecular networks plays crucial roles in many important biological processes and technological applications. The relevant understanding has been limited to thin rods with…
Actomyosin networks are major structural components of the cell. They provide mechanical integrity and allow dynamic remodeling of eukaryotic cells, self-organizing into the diverse patterns essential for development. We provide a…