Related papers: Engines at molecular scales
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…
Noise plays a fundamental role in a wide variety of physical and biological dynamical systems. It can arise from an external forcing or due to random dynamics internal to the system. It is well established that even weak noise can result in…
We analyze the performance of a Brownian ratchet in the presence of geometrical constraints. A two-state model that describes the kinetics of molecular motors is used to characterize the energetic cost when the motor proceeds under…
We study the transport properties for a walker on a ratchet potential. The walker consists of two particles coupled by a bistable potential that allow the interchange of the order of the particles while moving through a one-dimensional…
The study of noise assisted transport in quantum systems is essential in a wide range of applications from near-term NISQ devices to models for quantum biology. Here, we study a generalised XXZ model in the presence of stochastic collision…
Motor enzymes are remarkable molecular machines that use the energy derived from the hydrolysis of a nucleoside triphosphate to generate mechanical movement, achieved through different steps that constitute their kinetic cycle. These…
We study the coherence of transport of an overdamped Brownian particle in frictional ratchet system in the presence of external Gaussian white noise fluctuations. The analytical expressions for the particle velocity and diffusion…
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…
A light-driven molecular motor system is investigated using a multi-state Brownian ratchet model described by a single effective coordinate with multiple electronic states in a dissipative environment. The rotational motion of the motor…
In biological cells and novel diagnostic devices biochemical receptors need to be sensitive to extremely small concentration changes of signaling molecules. The accuracy of such molecular signaling is ultimately limited by the counting…
The transport of molecules through biological and synthetic nanopores is governed by multiple stochastic processes that lead to noisy, fluctuating currents. Disentangling the characteristics of different noise-generating mechanisms is…
Many biological functions are executed by molecular machines, which consume energy and convert it into mechanical work. Biological machines have evolved to transport cargo, facilitate folding of proteins and RNA, remodel chromatin and…
In recent years, several artificial molecular motors driven and controlled by electric currents have been proposed. Similar to Brownian machines, these systems work by turning random inelastic tunneling events into a directional rotation of…
One of the many measures of the non-equilibrium nature of a system is the existence of a non-zero steady state current which is especially relevant for many biological systems. To this end, we study the non-equilibrium dynamics of a…
Kinetics of biological motors such as kinesin or dynein is notably influenced by viscoelastic intracellular environment. The characteristic relaxation time of the cytosol is not separable from the colloidal timescale and therefore their…
Molecular machines transduce free energy between different forms throughout all living organisms. While truly machines in their own right, unlike their macroscopic counterparts molecular machines are characterized by stochastic…
Motivated by experiments on single-headed kinesin KIF1A, we develop a model of intra-cellular transport by interacting molecular motors. It captures explicitly not only the effects of ATP hydrolysis, but also the ratchet mechanism which…
Noise threads every scale of the natural world. Once dismissed as mere background hiss, it is now recognized as both a currency of information and a source of order in systems driven far from equilibrium. From nanometer-scale motor proteins…
Understanding the operation of biological molecular motors, nanoscale machines that transduce electrochemical energy into mechanical work, is enhanced by bottom-up strategies to synthesize novel motors.