Related papers: Modelling cargo transport in crowded environments:…
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…
Long-distance bidirectional transport of organelles depends on the motor proteins kinesin and dynein. Using quantitative data obtained from a fungal model system, we previously developed ASEP-models of bidirectional motion of motors along…
Many cellular processes rely on the cell's ability to transport material to and from the nucleus. Networks consisting of many microtubules and actin filaments are key to this transport. Recently, the inhibition of intracellular transport…
Within cells, vesicles and proteins are actively transported several micrometers along the cytoskeletal filaments. The transport along microtubules is propelled by dynein and kinesin motors, which carry the cargo in opposite directions.…
Biopolymers serve as one-dimensional tracks on which motor proteins move to perform their biological roles. Motor protein phenomena have inspired theoretical models of one-dimensional transport, crowding, and jamming. Experiments studying…
Molecular motors play pivotal roles in organizing the interior of cells. A motor efficient in cargo transport would move along cytoskeletal filaments with a high speed and a minimal error in transport distance (or time) while consuming a…
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…
Biomolecular condensates are essential for cellular organization and result from phase separation in systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Among various models, chemically active droplets play a significant role, consisting of…
The traffic of molecular motors through open tube-like compartments is studied using lattice models. These models exhibit boundary-induced phase transitions related to those of the asymmetric simple exclusion process (ASEP) in one…
The cytoskeleton in eukaryotic cells plays several crucial roles. In terms of intracellular transport, motor proteins use the cytoskeletal filaments as a backbone along which they can actively transport biological cargos such as vesicles…
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…
We introduce a multi-species lattice gas model for motor protein driven collective cargo transport on cellular filaments. We use this model to describe and analyze the collective motion of interacting vesicle cargoes being carried by…
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…
We study the role of active coupling on the transport properties of homogeneously charged macromolecules in an infinitely dilute solution. An enzyme becomes actively bound to a segment of the macromolecule, exerting an electrostatic force…
The collective motion of microorganisms and microrobots can be used for particle delivery, especially when guided by external magnetic fields, phototaxis, or chemotaxis. This cargo transport is enhanced significantly by hydrodynamic…
The interior of a living cell is an active, fluctuating, and crowded environment. Yet, it maintains a high level of coherent organization, which is readily apparent in the intracellular transport network. Membrane-bound compartments called…
We study the effect of a coupling between two motor domains in highly-processive motor protein complexes. A simple stochastic discrete model, in which the two parts of the protein molecule interact through some energy potential, is…
Cytoskeletal motor proteins are involved in major intracellular transport processes which are vital for maintaining appropriate cellular function. The motor exhibits distinct states of motility: active motion along filaments, and…
A ubiquitous observation in cell biology is that diffusion of macromolecules and organelles is anomalous, and a description simply based on the conventional diffusion equation with diffusion constants measured in dilute solution fails. This…
The traffic of molecular motors which interact through mutual exclusion is studied theoretically for half-open tube-like compartments. These half-open tubes mimic the shapes of axons. The mutual exclusion leads to traffic jams or density…