Related papers: Microtubule Defects Influence Kinesin-Based Transp…
The transport of macromolecules, such as DNA, through the cytoskeleton is critical to wide-ranging cellular processes from cytoplasmic streaming to transcription. The rigidity and steric hindrances imparted by the network of filaments…
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…
Inside cells, cargos such as vesicles and organelles are transported by molecular motors to their correct locations via active motion on cytoskeletal tracks and passive, Brownian diffusion. During the transportation of cargos, motor-cargo…
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…
Motivated by recent experiments showing the buckling of microtubules in cells, we study theoretically the mechanical response of, and force propagation along elastic filaments embedded in a non-linear elastic medium. We find that, although…
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have crucial roles in the spread of tumors during metastasis. A decisive step is the extravasation of CTCs from the blood stream or lymph system, which depends on the ability of cells to attach to vessel…
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…
The large-scale collective behavior of biological systems can be characterized by macroscopic transport, which arises from the non-equilibrium microscopic interactions among individual constituents. A prominent example is the formation of…
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…
Molecular motors perform active movements along cytoskeletal filaments and drive the traffic of organelles and other cargo particles in cells. In contrast to the macroscopic traffic of cars, however, the traffic of molecular motors is…
The dynamic behavior of microtubules in solution can be strongly modified by interactions with walls or other structures. We examine here a microtubule growth model where the increase in size of the plus-end is perturbed by collisions with…
The movement of intracellular cargo transported by molecular motors is commonly marked by switches between directed motion and stationary pauses. The predominant measure for assessing movement is effective diffusivity, which predicts the…
We analyze theoretically the problem of cargo transport along microtubules by motors of two species with opposite polarities. We consider two different one-dimensional models previously developed in the literature. On the one hand, a quite…
The actin and microtubule cytoskeletons are vital structures for cell growth and development across all species. While individual molecular mechanisms underpinning actin and microtubule dynamics have been intensively studied, principles…
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…
Plasma membrane tubes are ubiquitous in cellular membranes and in the membranes of intracellular organelles. They play crucial roles in trafficking, ion transport, and cellular motility. The formation of plasma membrane tubes can be due to…
In cells and in vitro assays the number of motor proteins involved in biological transport processes is far from being unlimited. The cytoskeletal binding sites are in contact with the same finite reservoir of motors (either the cytosol or…
Intracellular transport is vital for the proper functioning and survival of a cell. Cargo (proteins, vesicles, organelles, etc.) is transferred from its place of creation to its target locations via molecular motor assisted transport along…
Biological cells sense and respond to mechanical forces, but how such a mechanosensing proccess takes place in a nonlinear inhomogeneous fibrous matrix remains unknown. We show that cells in a fibrous matrix induce deformation fields that…
In nature interactions between biopolymers and motor proteins give rise to biologically essential emergent behaviours. Besides cytoskeleton mechanics, active nematics arise from such interactions. Here we present a study on 3D active…