Elastically coupled molecular motors

A Robust Mathematical Formulation for Studying Elastically Coupled Motor-Cargo Systems

Molecular motors are small, and, as a result, motor operation is dominated by high viscous friction and large thermal fluctuations from the surrounding fluid environment. The small size has made it very difficult to study the physical mechanisms of molecular motors. It is already difficult enough to see the motor itself, let alone to control the motor directly by applying an external force. In ...

Transport properties and efficiency of elastically coupled Brownian motors.

As models for biological molecular motors, Brownian motors have been studied recently by many workers, and their physical properties such as velocity, efficiency, and so on, have been investigated. They have also attracted much interest in an application to nanoscale technology. It is significant to study more complex systems, that is, coupled Brownian motors, in detail, since Brownian motors w...

Synchronization of elastically coupled processive molecular motors and regulation of cargo transport.

The collective work of motor proteins plays an important role in cellular transport processes. Since measuring intermotor coupling and hence a comparison to theoretical predictions is difficult, we introduce the synchronization as an alternative observable for motor cooperativity. This synchronization can be determined from the ratio of the mean times of motor resting and stepping. Results from...

A Biologically Inspired Ratchet Model of Two Coupled Brownian Motors

A ratchet model for coupled Brownian motors, inspired by the motion of individual two-headed molecular motors on cytoskeletal filaments, is proposed. Such motors are modeled as two elastically coupled Brownian particles, each of which moves in a flashing ratchet potential. The ratchet potentials felt by the individual particles are anti-correlated, modeling the successive binding and unbinding ...

Title Elastically coupled two-dimensional Brownian motors

Distinct transport regimes for two elastically coupled molecular motors.

Cooperative cargo transport by two molecular motors involves an elastic motor-motor coupling, which can reduce the motors' velocity and/or enhance their unbinding from the filament. We show theoretically that these interference effects lead, in general, to four distinct transport regimes. In addition to a weak coupling regime, kinesin and dynein motors are found to exhibit a strong coupling and...