Related papers: Elastically coupled molecular motors
Active deformable filaments exhibit a large range of qualitatively different three-dimensional dynamics, depending on their flexibility, the strength and nature of the active forcing, and the surrounding environment. We investigate the…
Microtubules are key structural elements of living cells that are crucial for cell division, intracellular transport and motility. Recent experiments have shown that microtubule severing proteins and molecular motors stimulate the direct…
We analyze a simple stochastic model to describe motor molecules which cooperate in large groups and present a physical mechanism which can lead to oscillatory motion if the motors are elastically coupled to their environment. Beyond a…
An improved linear model is developed for elasto-plastic and adhesive contact. New correlations are proposed and validated to estimate the key input parameters of the model, including contact stiffness, yield point, maximum pull-off force…
Diverse polymer crosslinking techniques allow the synthesis of linear polymer-like structures whose monomers are colloidal particles. In the case where all or part of these colloidal particles are magnetic, one can control the behaviour of…
Dynamic properties of molecular motors that fuel their motion by actively interacting with underlying molecular tracks are studied theoretically via discrete-state stochastic ``burnt-bridge'' models. The transport of the particles is viewed…
During cell division, sister chromatids are segregated by the mitotic spindle, a bipolar assembly of interdigitating antiparallel polar filaments called microtubules. Establishing a stable overlap region is essential for maintenance of…
We study the elastic behaviour of a supercoiled DNA molecule. The simplest model is that of a rod like chain, involving two elastic constants, the bending and the twist rigidities. We show that this model is singular and needs a small…
Mineralized collagen microfibrils in human bone provide its mechanical properties (stiffness, elasticity, ductility, energy dissipation and strength). However, detailed 3D finite element models describing the mechanical behaviour of the…
We investigate the weakening of elastic materials through randomly distributed circles and cracks numerically and compare the results to predictions from homogenization theories. We find a good agreement for the case of randomly oriented…
We develop a magnetic ribbon model for molecular cloud filaments. These result from turbulent compression in a molecular cloud in which the background magnetic field sets a preferred direction. We use our model to calculate a synthetic…
Inspired by active shape morphing in developing tissues and biomaterials, we investigate two generic mechanochemical models where the deformations of a thin elastic sheet are driven by, and in turn affect, the concentration gradients of a…
Many microorganisms propel through complex media by deformations of their flagella. The beat is thought to emerge from interactions between forces of the surrounding fluid, passive elastic response from deformations of the flagellum, and…
We investigate by analytical means the stochastic equations of motion of a linear molecular motor model based on the concept of protein friction. Solving the coupled Langevin equations originally proposed by Mogilner et al. (A. Mogilner et…
We consider models for elastic liquids, such as solutions of flexible polymers. They introduce a relaxation time $\lambda$ into the system, over which stresses relax. We study the kinematics of the problem, and clarify the relationship…
In order to study the effect of cell elastic properties on the behavior of assemblies of motile cells, this paper describes an alternative to the cell phase field (CPF) \cite{Palmieri2015} we have previously proposed. The CPF is a…
Functional proteins must fold with some minimal stability to a structure that can perform a biochemical task. Here we use a simple model to investigate the relationship between the stability requirement and the capacity of a protein to…
Single-chain elasticity is of fundamental importance in polymer physics, as it underlies many of the unique properties of polymer systems. Recently, there has been interest in characterizing the elastic properties of catenanes, molecular…
We investigate the properties of magnetic supracolliodal polymers -- magnetic filaments (MFs) -- with super-paramagnetic monomers, with and without Van der Waals (VdW) attraction between them. We employ molecular dynamics (MD) simulations…
Molecular motors do not work in isolation {\it in-vivo}. We highlight some of the coordinations, cooperations and competitions that determine the collective properties of molecular motors in eukaryotic cells. In the context of traffic-like…