Related papers: Hyperphosphorylation-Induced Phase Transition in V…
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…
Transport of molecular motors along protein filaments in a half-closed geometry is a common feature of biologically relevant processes in cellular protrusions. Using a lattice gas model we study how the interplay between active and…
Complex tissue flows in epithelia are driven by intra- and inter-cellular processes that generate, maintain, and coordinate mechanical forces. There has been growing evidence that cell shape anisotropy, manifested as nematic order, plays an…
One of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the accumulation and spread of toxic aggregates of tau protein. The progression of AD tau pathology is thought to be highly stereotyped, which is in part due to the fact that tau can…
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…
Active fluctuations are detected in a growing number of systems due to self-propulsion mechanisms or collisions with active environment. They drive the system far from equilibrium and can induce phenomena which at equilibrium states are…
Anomalously slow passive diffusion, $\langle \delta x^2(t)\rangle\simeq t^{\alpha}$, with $0<\alpha<1$, of larger tracers such as messenger RNA and endogenous submicron granules in the cytoplasm of living biological cells has been…
The transport by molecular motors along cytoskeletal filaments is studied theoretically in the presence of static defects. The movements of single motors are described as biased random walks along the filament as well as binding to and…
Although the disease-relevant microtubule-associated protein tau is known to severely inhibit kinesin-based transport in vitro, the potential mechanisms for reversing this detrimental effect to maintain healthy transport in cells remain…
Protein phosphorylation provides a dynamic readout of cellular signaling yet remains difficult to detect at low abundance and stoichiometry. Single-molecule surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SM-SERS) using particle-in-pore plasmonic…
Biofilament-motor protein complexes are ubiquitous in biology and drive the transport of cargo vital for many fundamental cellular processes. As they move, motor proteins exert compressive forces on the filaments to which they are attached,…
Fluid-resistance limited transport of vesicles through narrow constrictions is a recurring theme in many biological and engineering applications. Inspired by the motor-driven movement of soft membrane-bound vesicles into closed neuronal…
A microtubule (MT) is a hollow tube of approximately 25 nm diameter. The two ends of the tube are dissimilar and are designated as `plus' and `minus' ends. Motivated by the collective push and pull exerted by a bundle of MTs during…
Directing extracellular vesicles (EVs), such as exosomes and microvesicles, toward specific cells is an emerging focus in nanomedicine, owing to their natural role as carriers of proteins, RNAs, and drugs. EVs can be manipulated by external…
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…
Virus trafficking is fundamental for infection success and plasmid cytosolic trafficking is a key step of gene delivery. Based on the main physical properties of the cellular transport machinery such as microtubules, motor proteins, our…
Living cells exhibit multi-mode transport that switches between an active, self-propelled motion and a seemingly passive, random motion. Cellular decision-making over transport mode switching is a stochastic process that depends on the…
Motivated by recent advances in the investigation of fluctuation-driven ratchets and flows in excited granular media, we have carried out experimental and simulational studies to explore the horizontal transport of granular particles in a…
Channel proteins, that selectively conduct molecules across cell membranes, often exhibit an asymmetric structure. By means of a stochastic model, we argue that channel asymmetry in the presence of non-equilibrium fluctuations, fueled by…
We analyse a multi-phase field model for an epithelial monolayer with pairwise adhesions between neighbouring cells following an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, representing the stochastic turnover of junctional molecular motors. These…