2009/03/24 by Yan Chai, Reinhard Lipowsky, Stefan Klumpp · 2 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Physics and Astronomy · #Micro and Nano Robotics #Microtubule and mitosis dynamics #cond-mat.soft #physics.bio-ph #q-bio.SC #stochastic dynamics and bifurcation
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/s10955-009-9715-3
published as J. Stat. Phys. 135, 241-260 (2009) · 20 pages, latex, 7 figures, 1 table
openalex publication_date 2009/03/24 · arxiv created 2009/05/07 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
The transport by molecular motors along cytoskeletal filaments is studied theoretically in the presence of static defects. The movements of single motors are described as biased random walks along the filament as well as binding to and unbinding from the filament. Three basic types of defects are distinguished, which differ from normal filament sites only in one of the motors’ transition probabilities. Both stepping defects with a reduced probability for forward steps and unbinding defects with an increased probability for motor unbinding strongly reduce the velocities and the run lengths of the motors with increasing defect density. For transport by single motors, binding defects with a reduced probability for motor binding have a relatively small effect on the transport properties. For cargo transport by motors teams, binding defects also change the effective unbinding rate of the cargo particles and are expected to have a stronger effect.