Related papers: Kinesin as an electrostatic machine
The mitotic spindle partitions chromosomes during cell division by connecting the poles to kinetochores through microtubules (MTs). Their plus-ends, facing the chromosomes, exhibit dynamic instability, which is critical for proper…
Microtubules self-organize to form part of the cellular cytoskeleton. They give cells their shape and play a crucial role in cell division and intracellular transport. Strikingly, microtubules driven by motor proteins reorganize into stable…
Intracellular transport of large cargoes, such as organelles, vesicles or large proteins, is a complex dynamical process that involves the interplay of ATP-consuming molecular motors, cytoskeleton filaments and the viscoelastic cytoplasm.…
Active stresses, which are collectively generated by the motion of energy-consuming rod-like constituents, generate chaotic autonomous flows. Controlling active stresses in space and time is an essential prerequisite for controlling the…
The cooperative action of many molecular motors is essential for dynamic processes such as cell motility and mitosis. This action can be studied by using motility assays in which the motion of cytoskeletal filaments over a surface coated…
Molecular motors drive mechanical motions utilizing the free energy liberated from chemical reactions such as ATP hydrolysis. Although it is essential to know the efficiency of this free energy transduction, it has been a challenge due to…
Condensation of hundreds of mega-base-pair-long human chromosomes in a small nuclear volume is a spectacular phenomenon. This process is driven by the formation of chromosome loops. ATP consuming motor, condensin, interacts with chromatin…
Cells move by run and tumble, a kind of dynamics in which the cell alternates runs over straight lines and re-orientations. This erratic motion may be influenced by external factors, like chemicals, nutrients, the extra-cellular matrix, in…
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 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…
Along a microtubule, certain active motors propel themselves in one direction whereas others propel themselves in the opposite direction. For example, the cargo transporting motor proteins dynein and kinesin propel themselves towards the…
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…
Many biological processes are supported by special molecules, called motor proteins or molecular motors, that transport cellular cargoes along linear protein filaments and can reversibly associate to their tracks. Stimulated by these…
Recently individual two-headed kinesin molecules have been studied in in vitro motility assays revealing a number of their peculiar transport properties. In this paper we propose a simple and robust model for the kinesin stepping process…
We present a quantitative analysis of recent data on the kinetics of ATP hydrolysis, which has presented a puzzle regarding the load dependence of the Michaelis constant. Within the framework of coarse grained two-state ratchet models, our…
The cell cytoskeleton is a striking example of "active" medium driven out-of-equilibrium by ATP hydrolysis. Such activity has been shown recently to have a spectacular impact on the mechanical and rheological properties of the cellular…
Biological activity gives rise to non-equilibrium fluctuations in the cytoplasm of cells; however, there are few methods to directly measure these fluctuations. Using a reconstituted actin cytoskeleton, we show that the bending dynamics of…
Active materials are capable of converting free energy into mechanical work to produce autonomous motion, and exhibit striking collective dynamics that biology relies on for essential functions. Controlling those dynamics and transport in…
We study the dynamics and phase behaviour of a dry suspension of microtubules and molecular motors. We obtain a set of continuum equations by rigorously coarse graining a microscopic model where motor-induced interactions lead to parallel…
Dynamin is a ubiquitous GTPase that tubulates lipid bilayers and is implicated in many membrane severing processes in eukaryotic cells. Setting the grounds for a better understanding of this biological function, we develop a generalized…