Related papers: Molecular motors enhance microtubule lattice plast…
The cytoskeleton relies on diverse populations of motors, filaments, and binding proteins acting in concert to enable non-equilibrium processes ranging from mitosis to chemotaxis. Its versatile reconfigurability, programmed by interactions…
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…
Self-organization of kinesin-driven, microtubule-based 3D active fluids relies on the collective dynamics of single microtubules. However, the connection between macroscopic fluid flows and microscopic motion of microtubules remains…
We study the dynamics and phase behaviour of a dry suspension of microtubules and molecular motors. We obtain a set of continuum equations by rigorously coarse graining a microscopic model where motor-induced interactions lead to parallel…
Recent experiments reveal both passive subdiffusion of various nanoparticles and anomalous active transport of such particles by molecular motors in the molecularly crowded environment of living biological cells. Passive and active…
The spontaneous emergence of contraction-inducing electrical activity in the uterus at the beginning of labor remains poorly understood, partly due to the seemingly contradictory observation that isolated uterine cells are not spontaneously…
The stochastic driving force exerted by a single molecular motor (e.g., a kinesin, or myosin) moving on a periodic molecular track (microtubule, actin filament, etc.) is discussed from a general viewpoint open to experimental test. An…
The motility of a fish keratocyte on a flat substrate exhibits two distinct regimes: the non-migrating and the migrating one. In both configurations the shape is fixed in time and, when the cell is moving, the velocity is constant in…
Intracellular transport is an essential function in eucaryotic cells, facilitated by motor proteins - proteins converting chemical energy into kinetic energy. It is known that motor proteins work in teams enabling unidirectional and…
Starting from the hypothesis that the tubulin dimer is a conformationally bistable molecule - fluctuating between a curved and a straight configuration at room temperature - we develop a model for polymorphic dynamics of the microtubule…
Dynamic properties of molecular motors whose motion is powered by interactions with specific lattice bonds are studied theoretically with the help of discrete-state stochastic "burnt-bridge" models. Molecular motors are depicted as random…
The flow of motor proteins on a filamental track is modelled within the the framework of lattice driven diffusive systems. Motors, considered as hopping particles, perform a highly biased asymmetric exclusion process when bound to the…
Power-law dwell times have been observed for molecular motors in living cells, but the origins of these trapped states are not known. We introduce a minimal model of motors moving on a two-dimensional network of filaments, and simulations…
Membrane tubes are important elements for living cells to organize many functions. Experiments have found that membrane tube can be extracted from giant lipid vesicles by a group of kinesin. How these motors cooperate in extracting the…
Living systems often exhibit internal driving: active, molecular processes drive nonequilibrium phenomena such as metabolism or migration. Active gels constitute a fascinating class of internally driven matter, where molecular motors exert…
Three problems in the statistical mechanics of models for an assembly of molecular motors interacting with cytoskeletal filaments are reviewed. First, a description of the hydrodynamical behaviour of density-density correlations in…
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…
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…
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…
Cells often migrate on curved surfaces inside the body, such as curved tissues, blood vessels or highly curved protrusions of other cells. Recent \textit{in-vitro} experiments provide clear evidence that motile cells are affected by the…