Related papers: Tangential Model of Microtubules
We discuss a model describing the effects of tidal dissipation on satellite's orbits. Tidal bulges are described in terms of a dumbbell, coupled to the rotation by a dissipative interaction. The assumptions on this dissipative coupling…
We present a physical mechanism that can cause the mitotic spindle to oscillate. The driving force for this mechanism emerges from the polymerization of astral microtubules interacting with the cell cortex. We show that Brownian ratchet…
Propelling microorganisms through fluids and moving fluids along cellular surfaces are essential biological functions accomplished by long, thin structures called motile cilia and flagella, whose regular, oscillatory beating breaks the…
Cell membranes are anchored to the cytoskeleton via immobile inclusions. We investigate the effect of such anchors on the in-plane dynamics of a fluid membrane and mobile inclusions (proteins) embedded in it. The immobile particles lead to…
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…
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…
Recent experimental research with marine algae points towards quantum entanglement at ambient temperature, with correlations between essential biological units separated by distances as long as 20 Angstr\"oms. The associated decoherence…
We analyze both the static and dynamic fluctuation spectrum of the red-blood cell in a unified manner, using a simple model of the composite membrane. In this model, the two-dimensional spectrin network that forms the cytoskeleton is…
Generation of mechanical oscillation is ubiquitous to wide variety of intracellular processes. We show that catchbonding behaviour of motor proteins provides a generic mechanism of generating spontaneous oscillations in motor-cytoskeletal…
Here we study a driven lattice gas model for microtubule depolymerizing molecular motors, where traffic jams of motors induce stochastic switching between microtubule growth and shrinkage. We term this phenomenon \enquote{traffic dynamic…
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…
It has been suggested that microtubules and other cytoskeletal filaments may act as electrical transmission lines. An electrical circuit model of the microtubule is constructed incorporating features of its cylindrical structure with…
We develop a general theory of microtubule (MT) deformations by molecular motors generating internal force doublets within the MT lattice. We describe two basic internal excitations, the S and V shape, and compare them with experimental…
Microtubules are filamentous tubular protein polymers which are essential for a range of cellular behaviour, and are generally straight over micron length scales. However, in some gliding assays, where microtubules move over a carpet of…
The fate of every eukaryotic cell subtly relies on the exceptional mechanical properties of microtubules. Despite significant efforts, understanding their unusual mechanics remains elusive. One persistent, unresolved mystery is the…
Mixtures of microtubules and molecular motors form active materials with diverse dynamical behaviors that vary based on their constituents' molecular properties. We map the non-equilibrium phase diagram of microtubules and tip-accumulating…
We present a general dynamical theory of a membrane coupled to an actin cortex containing polymerizing filaments with active stresses and currents, and demonstrate that active membrane dynamics [Phys. Rev. Lett \textbf{84}, 3494 (2000)] and…
We investigate the behavior of self-propelled particles under cyclic stretching, inspired by the characteristic pattern dynamics observed in microtubule (MT) motility assays subjected to uniaxial cyclic substrate stretching. We develop a…
Tangencies correspond to singularities of impact systems, separating between impacting and non-impacting trajectory segments. The closure of their orbits constitute the singularity set, which, even in the simpler billiard limit, is known to…
Many cellular processes are tightly connected to the dynamics of microtubules (MTs). While in neuronal axons MTs mainly regulate intracellular trafficking, they participate in cytoskeleton reorganization in many other eukaryotic cells,…