Related papers: Dynamics of an inchworm nano-walker
Motor-proteins are responsible for transport inside cells. Harnessing their activity is key towards developing new nano-technologies, or functional biomaterials. Cytoskeleton-like networks, recently tailored in vitro, result from the…
Among the multiple steps constituting the kinesin's mechanochemical cycle, one of the most interesting events is observed when kinesins move an 8-nm step from one microtubule (MT)-binding site to another. The stepping motion that occurs…
Cellular cargo can be bound to cytoskeletal filaments by one or multiple active or passive molecular motors. Recent experiments have shown that the presence of auxiliary, nondriving motors, results in an enhanced processivity of the cargo,…
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,…
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…
We introduce a general framework to study the processivity of molecular motors moving along a polar filament and discuss the average time spent attached to the filament as a function of a tangentially applied load. Our study of specific…
Motivated by recent experimental results for the step sizes of dynein motor proteins, we develope a cellular automata model for intra-cellular traffic of dynein motors incorporating special features of the hindrance-dependent step size of…
We model the dynamics of a processive or rotary molecular motor using a renewal processes, in line with the work initiated by Svoboda, Mitra and Block. We apply a functional technique to compute different types of multiple-time correlation…
Polymerization of RNA from a template DNA is carried out by a molecular machine called RNA polymerase (RNAP). It also uses the template as a track on which it moves as a motor utilizing chemical energy input. The time it spends at each…
A molecular motor is made of either a single macromolecule or a macromolecular complex. Just like their macroscopic counterparts, molecular motors "transduce" input energy into mechanical work. All the nano-motors considered here operate…
Motor proteins that specifically interact with the ends of cytoskeletal filaments can induce filament depolymerization. A phenomenological description of this process is presented. We show that under certain conditions motors dynamically…
Single kinesin molecular motors can processively move along a microtubule (MT) a few micrometers on average before dissociating. However, cellular length scales over which transport occurs are several hundred microns and more. Why seemingly…
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 consider in this paper a solvable model for the motion of molecular motors. Based on the averaging principle, we reduce the problem to a diffusion process on a graph. We then calculate the effective speed of transportation of these…
Single molecular motor kinesin harnesses thermal and non-thermal fluctuations to transport various cargoes along microtubules, converting chemical energy to directed movements. To describe the non-thermal fluctuations generated by the…
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…
We model a processive linear molecular motor as a particle diffusing in a one-dimensional periodic lattice with arbitrary transition rates between its sites. We present a relatively simple proof of a theorem which states that the ratio of…
Multiple experiments show that various submicron particles such as magnetosomes, RNA messengers, viruses, and even much smaller nanoparticles such as globular proteins diffuse anomalously slow in viscoelastic cytosol of living cells. Hence,…
Cytoskeletal motor proteins are involved in major intracellular transport processes which are vital for maintaining appropriate cellular function. The motor exhibits distinct states of motility: active motion along filaments, and…
In this work we study the assisted translocation of a polymer across a membrane nanopore, inside which a molecular motor exerts a force fuelled by the hydrolysis of ATP molecules. In our model the motor switches to its active state for a…