相关论文: Active liquid crystals powered by force-sensing DN…
Conventional kinesin is a dimeric motor protein that transports membranous organelles toward the plus-end of microtubules (MTs). Individual kinesin dimers show steadfast directionality and hundreds of consecutive steps, yetthe detailed…
Active materials with distinctive nonequilibrium properties have diverse materials science applications. Active systems are common in living matter, such as the filament network in the cell that is activated by molecular motors, and in…
We investigate the dynamics of an active gel of bundled microtubules that is driven by clusters of kinesin molecular motors. Upon the addition of ATP, the coordinated action of thousands of molecular motors drives the gel to a highly…
Conventional kinesin is a motor protein, which is able to walk along a microtubule processively. The exact mechanism of the stepping motion and force generation of kinesin is still far from clear. In this paper we argue that neck linker…
Molecular motors belonging to the kinesin and myosin super family hydrolyze ATP by cycling through a sequence of chemical states. These cytoplasmic motors are dimers made up of two linked identical monomeric globular proteins. Fueled by the…
Mixtures of microtubules and molecular motors form active materials with diverse dynamical behaviors that vary based on their constituents' molecular properties. We map the non-equilibrium phase diagram of microtubules and tip-accumulating…
The central dogma of molecular biology is the principal framework for understanding how nucleic acid information is propagated and used by living systems to create complex biomolecules. Here, by integrating the structural and dynamic…
Active nematics are out-of-equilibrium systems in which energy injection at the microscale drives emergent collective behaviors, from spontaneous flows to active turbulence. While the dynamics of these systems have been extensively studied,…
The kinesin superfamily of motor proteins is a major driver of anterograde transport of vesicles and organelles within eukaryotic cells via microtubules. Numerous studies have elucidated the step-size, velocities, forces, and navigation…
We have studied the elastic response of actin networks with both compliant and rigid crosslinks by modeling molecular motors as force dipoles. Our finite element simulations show that for compliant crosslinkers such as filamin A, the…
Reconstituted filamentous actin networks with myosin motor proteins form active gels, in which motor proteins generate forces that drive the network far from equilibrium. This motor activity can also strongly affect the network elasticity;…
Polymers are a primary building block in many biomaterials, often interacting with anisotropic backgrounds. While previous studies have considered polymer dynamics within nematic solvents, rarely are the the effects of anisotropic viscosity…
At the heart of the structured architecture and complex dynamics of biological systems are specific and timely interactions operated by biomolecules. In many instances, biomolecular agents are spatially confined to flexible lipid membranes…
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…
Active nematics are microscopically driven liquid crystals that exhibit dynamical steady states characterized by the creation and annihilation of topological defects. Motivated by experimental realizations of such systems made of biopolymer…
Synthetic molecular motors are an appealing means to control motion at the nanoscale, but understanding their behaviour as single-molecule actuators and integrating them into larger, functional systems remain technical challenges.…
With exquisite precision and reproducibility, cells orchestrate the cooperative action of thousands of nanometer-sized molecular motors to carry out mechanical tasks at much larger length scales, such as cell motility, division and…
DNA nanostructures are made using synthetic DNA strands, the sequences of which are designed such that they will self-assemble into the desired form by hybridization of complementary domains. Various structures and devices have been…
The forces that mixtures of motorized and passive crosslinking proteins collectively generate between cytoskeletal filaments within our cells are the key drivers of active cellular mechanics. Despite their importance, a unified theory to…
Dynamically crosslinked semiflexible biopolymers such as the actin cytoskeleton govern the mechanical behavior of living cells. Semiflexible biopolymers nonlinearly stiffen in response to mechanical loads, whereas the crosslinker dynamics…