Related papers: The Force Exerted by a Molecular Motor
Kinesin and related motor proteins utilize ATP fuel to propel themselves along the external surface of microtubules in a processive and directional fashion. We show that the observed step-like motion is possible through time varying charge…
Molecular motors are involved in key transport processes inside actin-based cellular protrusions. The motors carry cargo proteins to the protrusion tip which participate in regulating the actin polymerization, and play a key role in…
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…
We analyze experimental observations of microtubules undergoing small fluctuations about a "balance point" when mixed in solution of two different kinesin motor proteins, KLP61F and Ncd. It has been proposed that the microtubule movement is…
We consider the classical Prandtl-Tomlinson model of a particle moving on a corrugated potential, pulled by a spring. In the usual situation in which pulling acts at constant velocity $\dot\gamma$, the model displays an average friction…
In this article we examine the dynamics of a colloidal particle driven by a modulated force over a sinusoidal optical potential energy landscape. Coupling between the competing frequencies of the modulated drive and that of particle motion…
We consider the dynamics of a bio-filament under the collective drive of motor proteins. They are attached irreversibly to a substrate and undergo stochastic attachment-detachment with the filament to produce a directed force on it. We…
The Kinesin family of motor proteins are involved in a variety of cellular processes that transport materials and generate force. With recent advances in experimental techniques, such as optical tweezers which can probe individual…
Spontaneous directed motion, a hallmark of cell biology, is unusual in classical statistical physics. Here we study, using both numerical and analytical methods, organized motion in models of the cytoskeleton in which constituents are…
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 model analytically the dynamics of a cytoskeletal filament in a motility assay. The filament is described as rigid rod free to slide in two dimensions. The motor proteins consist of polymeric tails tethered to the plane and modeled as…
We investigate the efficiency of systems of molecular motors operating at maximum power. We consider two models of kinesin motors on a microtubule: for both the simplified and the detailed model, we find that the many-body exclusion effect…
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…
Cells are complex structures which require considerable amounts of organization via transport of large intracellular cargo. While passive diffusion is often sufficiently fast for the transport of smaller cargo, active transport is necessary…
Molecular motor proteins serve as an essential component of intracellular transport by generating forces to haul cargoes along cytoskeletal filaments. Two species of motors that are directed oppositely (e.g. kinesin, dynein) can be attached…
Traffic-like collective movements are observed at almost all levels of biological systems. Molecular motor proteins like, for example, kinesin and dynein, which are the vehicles of almost all intra-cellular transport in eukayotic cells,…
Enzymatic molecules that actively support many cellular processes, including transport, cell division and cell motility, are known as motor proteins or molecular motors. Experimental studies indicate that they interact with each other and…
Simulations can help unravel the complicated ways in which molecular structure determines function. Here, we use molecular simulations to show how slight alterations of a molecular motor's structure can cause the motor's typical dynamical…
Dynein motors exhibit catch bonding, where the unbinding rate of the motors from microtubule filaments decreases with increasing opposing load. The implications of this catch bond on the transport properties of dynein-driven cargo are yet…
Systems with two species of active molecular motors moving on (cytoskeletal) filaments into opposite directions are studied theoretically using driven lattice gas models. The motors can unbind from and rebind to the filaments. Two motors…