Related papers: Computing the motor torque of Escherichia coli

The cooperative binding of molecular agents onto a substrate is pervasive in living systems. To study whether a system shows cooperativity, one can rely on a fluctuation analysis of quantities such as the number of substrate-bound units and…

The near-surface swimming patterns of bacteria are strongly determined by the hydrodynamic interactions between bacteria and the surface, which trap bacteria in smooth circular trajectories that lead to inefficient surface exploration.…

Helical propulsion is used by many microorganisms to swim in viscous-dominated environments. Their swimming dynamics are relatively well understood, but detailed study of the flow fields and actuation mechanisms are still needed to realize…

Molecular rotors form twisted conformations upon photoexcitation, with their fluorescent relaxation time serving as a measure of viscosity. They have been used to assess membrane viscosities but yield higher values compared to other…

Molecular motors are single macromolecules that generate forces at the piconewton range and nanometer scale. They convert chemical energy into mechanical work by moving along filamentous structures. In this paper, we study the velocity of…

Evolution has provided many organisms with sophisticated sensory systems that enable them to respond to signals in their environment. The response frequently involves alteration in the pattern of movement, such as the chemokinesis of the…

Densely packed, motile bacteria can adopt collective states not seen in conventional, passive materials. These states remain in many ways mysterious, and their physical characterization can aid our understanding of natural bacterial…

Manipulating mega biomolecules and micro-devices with light is highly appealing. Opto driving torque can propel micro-rotors to translational motion in viscous liquid, and then separate microsystems according to their handedness. We study…

We report on electrically-induced rotations in water films, which can function at many length scales. The device consists of a two-dimensional cell used for electrolysis of water films, as simple as an insulator frame with two electrodes on…

Noise in transduction of chemotactic stimuli to the flagellar motor of E. coli will affect the random run-and-tumble motion of the cell and the ability to perform chemotaxis. Here we use numerical simulations to show that an intermediate…

The immersed boundary method is a mathematical formulation and numerical method for solving fluid-structure interaction problems. For many biological problems, such as models that include the cell membrane, the immersed structure is a…

In this paper, we present an analytical calculation of the rotational mobility functions of a particle rotating on the centerline of an elastic cylindrical tube whose membrane exhibits resistance towards shearing and bending. We find that…

The transport of cargo particles which are pulled by several molecular motors in a cooperative manner is studied theoretically. The transport properties depend primarily on the maximal number, $N$, of motor molecules that may pull…

The stochastic dynamics of flagellar beating for micro-swimmers, such as flagellated cells, sperms and microalgae, is widely thought to include a feedback mechanism between flagellar shape and the rate of activation/de-activation of the $N…

Bacteriophage viruses, one of the most abundant entities in our planet, lack the ability to move independently. Instead, they crowd fluid environments in anticipation of a random encounter with a bacterium. Once they land on the cell body…

During division it is of primary importance for a cell to correctly determine the site of cleavage. The bacterium Escherichia coli divides in the center, producing two daughter cells of equal size. Selection of the center as the correct…

In response to a concentration gradient of nutrient, E. coli bacterium modulates the rotational bias of flagellar motors which control its run-and-tumble motion, to migrate towards regions of high nutrient concentration. Presence of…

We investigate the local viscosity of a polymer glass around its glass transition temperature using environment-sensitive fluorescent molecular rotors embedded in the polymer matrix. The rotors' fluorescence depends on the local viscosity,…

We show that the recent experimental observation of the rectification of swimming bacteria in a system with an array of asymmetric barriers occurs due to the ballistic component of the bacteria trajectories introduced by the bacterial…

Molecular motors are macromolecular complexes which use some form of input energy to perform mechanical work. The filamentary tracks, on which these motors move, are made of either proteins (e.g., microtubules) or nucleic acids (DNA or…