Related papers: Model for processive movement of dynein
The molecular motor protein kinesin plays a key role in fundamental cellular processes such as intracellular transport, mitotic spindle formation, and cytokinesis, with important implications for neurodegenerative and cancer disease…
The polymerization of actin via branching at a cell membrane containing nucleation-promoting factors is simulated using a stochastic-growth methodology. The polymerized-actin distribution displays three types of behavior: a) traveling…
The conditions under which biological cells switch from a static to a motile state are fundamental to the understanding of many healthy and pathological processes. In this paper, we show that even in the presence of a fully symmetric…
I study via Langevin dynamics simulations two opposite cases of systems of particles that alternate their identity according to density dependent motility (DDM) rules and interact via a soft repulsive potential. In the correlated case,…
Single molecule manipulation techniques reveal that the mechanical resistance of a protein depends on the direction of the applied force. Using a lattice model of polymers, we show that changing the pulling direction leads to different…
We propose a novel mechanism of cell motility, which relies on the coupling of actin polymerization at the cell membrane to geometric confinement. We consider a polymerizing viscoelastic cytoskeletal gel confined in a narrow channel, and…
We use molecular dynamics simulations to investigate translational and rotational diffusion in a rigid three-site model of the fragile glass former ortho-terphenyl, at 260 K < T < 346 K and ambient pressure. An Einstein formulation of…
We investigate the steady-state electronic transport through a suspended dimer molecule coupled to leads. When strongly coupled to a vibrational mode, the electron transport is enhanced at the phonon resonant frequency and higher-order…
Biological adhesion is a critical mechanical function of complex organisms operating at multiple scales. At the cellular scale, cell-cell adhesion is remarkably tunable to enable both cohesion and malleability during development,…
Microtubule dynamic instability arises from the hydrolysis of GTP bound to the beta-monomer of the tubulin dimer. The conformational change induced by hydrolysis is unknown, but microtubules disassemble into protofilaments of GDP-bound…
Proteins in photosynthetic membranes can organize into patterned arrays that span the membrane's lateral size. Attractions between proteins in different layers of a membrane stack can play a key role in this ordering, as was suggested by…
We model the dynamical states of the C-termini of tubulin dimers that comprise neuronal microtubules. We use molecular dynamics and other computational tools to explore the time-dependent behavior of conformational states of a C-terminus of…
Polar flocks in discrete active systems are often assumed to be robust, yet recent studies reveal their fragility under both imposed and spontaneous fluctuations. Here, we revisit the four-state active Potts model (APM) and show that its…
The dynamics of an active walker in a harmonic potential is studied experimentally, numerically and theoretically. At odds with usual models of self-propelled particles, we identify two dynamical states for which the particle condensates at…
We optically drive a microsphere at constant speed through entangled actin networks of 0.2 - 1.4 mg/ml at rates faster than the critical rate controlling the onset of a nonlinear response. By measuring the resistive force exerted on the…
We develop a theoretical approach to study the transient dynamics and the time-dependent statistics for the Anderson-Holstein model in the regime of strong electron-phonon coupling. For this purpose we adapt a recently introduced…
The actin cytoskeleton is remarkably adaptable and multifunctional. It often organizes into nematic bundles such as contractile rings or stress fibers. However, how a uniform and isotropic actin gel self-organizes into dense nematic bundles…
Optical tracking in vivo experiments reveal that diffusion of particles in biological cells is strongly enhanced in the presence of ATP and the experimental data for animal cells could previously be reproduced within a phenomenological…
We consider the influence of disorder on the non-equilibrium steady state of a minimal model for intracellular transport. In this model particles move unidirectionally according to the \emph{totally asymmetric exclusion process} (TASEP) and…
It is well known that many biochemical processes in the cell such as gene regulation, growth signals and activation of ion channels, rely on mechanical stimuli. However, the mechanism by which mechanical signals propagate through cells is…