Related papers: Filament depolymerization by motor molecules
Motivated by the formation of ring-like filament structures in the cortex of plant and animal cells, we study the dynamics of a two-dimensional layer of cytoskeletal filaments and motor proteins near a surface by a general continuum theory.…
We find a statistical mechanism that can adjust orientations of intracellular filaments to cell geometry in absence of organizing centers. The effect is based on random and isotropic filament (de-)polymerization dynamics and is independent…
In various cellular processes, biofilaments like F-actin and F-tubulin are able to exploit chemical energy associated to polymerization to perform mechanical work against an external load. The force-velocity relationship quantitatively…
A model for polar filaments interacting via molecular motor complexes is investigated which exhibits bifurcations to spatial patterns. It is shown that the homogeneous distribution of filaments, such as actin or microtubules, may become…
We consider a model of an extensible semiflexible filament moving in two dimensions on a motility assay of motor proteins represented explicitly as active harmonic linkers. Their heads bind stochastically to polymer segments within a…
In active materials, uncoordinated internal stresses lead to emergent long-range flows. An understanding of how the behavior of active materials depends on mesoscopic (hydrodynamic) parameters is developing, but there remains a gap in…
Many biological processes involve the action of molecular motors that interact with the cell cytoskeleton. Some processes, such as the transport of cargoes is achieved mainly by the action of individual motors. Other, such as cell motility…
Here we study a driven lattice gas model for microtubule depolymerizing molecular motors, where traffic jams of motors induce stochastic switching between microtubule growth and shrinkage. We term this phenomenon \enquote{traffic dynamic…
Ultrathin polymer films that are produced e.g. by spin-coating are believed to be stressed since polymers are 'frozen in' into out-of-equilibrium configurations during this process. In the framework of a viscoelastic thin film model, we…
The onset of star formation is set by the collapse of filaments in the interstellar medium. From a theoretical point of view, an isolated cylindrical filament forms cores via the edge effect. Due to the self-gravity of a filament, the…
The dynamics of molecular motors which occasionally detach from a heterogeneous track like DNA or RNA is considered. Motivated by recent single molecule experiments, we study a simple model for a motor moving along a disordered track using…
The cytoskeleton is an important subsystem of cells that is involved for example in cell division and locomotion. It consists of filaments that are cross-linked by molecular motors that can induce relative sliding between filaments and…
The cytoskeleton is regulated by a plethora of enzymes that influence the stability and dynamics of cytoskeletal filaments. Molecular motors of the kinesin-8 protein family depolymerise microtubules in a length-dependent manner, and…
The polymerization dynamics of double-stranded polymers, such as actin filaments, is investigated theoretically using simple chemical kinetic models that explicitly take into account some microscopic details of the polymer structure and the…
Cellular actin dynamics result from collective action of hundreds of regulatory proteins, majority of which target actin filaments at their barbed ends. Three key actin binding proteins - profilin, cofilin and twinfilin individually…
Two headed motor proteins, such as kinesin and dynein, hidrolyze environmental ATP in order to propel unidirectionally along cytoskeletal filaments such as microtubules. In the case of kinesin, protein heads bind primarily on the alpha…
Active filament-like systems propelling along their backbone exist across the scales ranging from motor-driven bio-filaments to worms and robotic chains. In macroscopic active filaments such as chain of robots, in contrast to their…
Can the different causes for disruption of intracellular transport be traced from the trajectories of the molecular motors on the cytoskeletal filaments? We will attempt to answer this important question in a Monte Carlo model of…
Robust self-organization of subcellular structures is a key principle governing the dynamics and evolution of cellular life. In fission yeast cells undergoing division, the mitotic spindle spontaneously emerges from the interaction of…
Active matter agents consume internal energy or extract energy from the environment for locomotion and force generation. Already rather generic models, such as ensembles of active Brownian particles, exhibit phenomena, which are absent at…