Faculty Publications

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book/Conference Title Title

Physical Review X

Volume

6

Issue

1

Abstract

Power-law dwell times have been observed for molecular motors in living cells, but the origins of these trapped states are not known. We introduce a minimal model of motors moving on a two-dimensional network of filaments, and simulations of its dynamics exhibit statistics comparable to those observed experimentally. Analysis of the model trajectories, as well as experimental particle tracking data, reveals a state in which motors cycle unproductively at junctions of three or more filaments. We formulate a master equation for these junction dynamics and show that the time required to escape from this vortexlike state can account for the power-law dwell times. We identify trends in the dynamics with the motor valency for further experimental validation. We demonstrate that these trends exist in individual trajectories of myosin II on an actin network. We discuss how cells could regulate intracellular transport and, in turn, biological function by controlling their cytoskeletal network structures locally.

Department

Department of Physics

Comments

First published in Phyiscal Review X, v.6 n.1(2017) e011037, published by the American Physical Society. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.6.011037

Original Publication Date

3-2016

DOI of published version

10.1103/PhysRevX.6.011037

Repository

UNI ScholarWorks, University of Northern Iowa, Rod Library

Copyright

©2016 Monika Scholz, Stanislav Burov, Kimberly L. Weirich, Björn J. Scholz, S. M. Ali Tabei, Margaret L. Gardel, and Aaron R. Dinner. This article is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Date Digital

2016

Language

EN

File Format

application/pdf

Included in

Physics Commons

Share

COinS