303 research outputs found
Bulk-mediated diffusion on a planar surface: full solution
We consider the effective surface motion of a particle that intermittently
unbinds from a planar surface and performs bulk excursions. Based on a random
walk approach we derive the diffusion equations for surface and bulk diffusion
including the surface-bulk coupling. From these exact dynamic equations we
analytically obtain the propagator of the effective surface motion. This
approach allows us to deduce a superdiffusive, Cauchy-type behavior on the
surface, together with exact cutoffs limiting the Cauchy form. Moreover we
study the long-time dynamics for the surface motion.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figur
Single-file dynamics with different diffusion constants
We investigate the single-file dynamics of a tagged particle in a system
consisting of N hardcore interacting particles (the particles cannot pass each
other) which are diffusing in a one-dimensional system where the particles have
different diffusion constants. For the two particle case an exact result for
the conditional probability density function (PDF) is obtained for arbitrary
initial particle positions and all times. The two-particle PDF is used to
obtain the tagged particle PDF. For the general N-particle case (N large) we
perform stochastic simulations using our new computationally efficient
stochastic simulation technique based on the Gillespie algorithm. We find that
the mean square displacement for a tagged particle scales as the square root of
time (as for identical particles) for long times, with a prefactor which
depends on the diffusion constants for the particles; these results are in
excellent agreement with very recent analytic predictions in the mathematics
literature.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures. Journal of Chemical Physics (in press
Ion pump activity generates fluctuating electrostatic forces in biomembranes
We study the non-equilibrium dynamics of lipid membranes with proteins that
actively pump ions across the membrane. We find that the activity leads to a
fluctuating force distribution due to electrostatic interactions arising from
variation in dielectric constant across the membrane. By applying a multipole
expansion we find effects on both the tension and bending rigidity dominated
parts of the membranes fluctuation spectrum. We discuss how our model compares
with previous studies of force-multipole models.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, to appear in EP
Subdiffusion and weak ergodicity breaking in the presence of a reactive boundary
We derive the boundary condition for a subdiffusive particle interacting with
a reactive boundary with finite reaction rate. Molecular crowding conditions,
that are found to cause subdiffusion of larger molecules in biological cells,
are shown to effect long-tailed distributions with identical exponent for both
the unbinding times from the boundary to the bulk and the rebinding times from
the bulk. This causes a weak ergodicity breaking: typically, an individual
particle either stays bound or remains in the bulk for very long times. We
discuss why this may be beneficial for in vivo gene regulation by DNA-binding
proteins, whose typical concentrations are nanomolarComment: 4 pages, 1 figure, REVTeX4, accepted to Phys Rev Lett, some typos
correcte
Effective surface motion on a reactive cylinder of particles that perform intermittent bulk diffusion
In many biological and small scale technological applications particles may
transiently bind to a cylindrical surface. In between two binding events the
particles diffuse in the bulk, thus producing an effective translation on the
cylinder surface. We here derive the effective motion on the surface, allowing
for additional diffusion on the cylinder surface itself. We find explicit
solutions for the number of adsorbed particles at one given instant, the
effective surface displacement, as well as the surface propagator. In
particular sub- and superdiffusive regimes are found, as well as an effective
stalling of diffusion visible as a plateau in the mean squared displacement. We
also investigate the corresponding first passage and first return problems.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figure
Descriptions of membrane mechanics from microscopic and effective two-dimensional perspectives
Mechanics of fluid membranes may be described in terms of the concepts of
mechanical deformations and stresses, or in terms of mechanical free-energy
functions. In this paper, each of the two descriptions is developed by viewing
a membrane from two perspectives: a microscopic perspective, in which the
membrane appears as a thin layer of finite thickness and with highly
inhomogeneous material and force distributions in its transverse direction, and
an effective, two-dimensional perspective, in which the membrane is treated as
an infinitely thin surface, with effective material and mechanical properties.
A connection between these two perspectives is then established. Moreover, the
functional dependence of the variation in the mechanical free energy of the
membrane on its mechanical deformations is first studied in the microscopic
perspective. The result is then used to examine to what extent different,
effective mechanical stresses and forces can be derived from a given, effective
functional of the mechanical free energy.Comment: 37 pages, 3 figures, minor change
Two-photon time-lapse microscopy of BODIPY-cholesterol reveals anomalous sterol diffusion in chinese hamster ovary cells
Background Cholesterol is an important membrane component, but our knowledge about its transport in cells is sparse. Previous imaging studies using dehydroergosterol (DHE), an intrinsically fluorescent sterol from yeast, have established that vesicular and non-vesicular transport modes contribute to sterol trafficking from the plasma membrane. Significant photobleaching, however, limits the possibilities for in-depth analysis of sterol dynamics using DHE. Co-trafficking studies with DHE and the recently introduced fluorescent cholesterol analog BODIPY-cholesterol (BChol) suggested that the latter probe has utility for prolonged live-cell imaging of sterol transport. Results We found that BChol is very photostable under two-photon (2P)-excitation allowing the acquisition of several hundred frames without significant photobleaching. Therefore, long-term tracking and diffusion measurements are possible. Two-photon temporal image correlation spectroscopy (2P-TICS) provided evidence for spatially heterogeneous diffusion constants of BChol varying over two orders of magnitude from the cell interior towards the plasma membrane, where D ~ 1.3 μm2/s. Number and brightness (N&B) analysis together with stochastic simulations suggest that transient partitioning of BChol into convoluted membranes slows local sterol diffusion. We observed sterol endocytosis as well as fusion and fission of sterol-containing endocytic vesicles. The mobility of endocytic vesicles, as studied by particle tracking, is well described by a model for anomalous subdiffusion on short time scales with an anomalous exponent α ~ 0.63 and an anomalous diffusion constant of Dα = 1.95 x 10-3 μm2/sα. On a longer time scale (t \u3e ~5 s), a transition to superdiffusion consistent with slow directed transport with an average velocity of v ~ 6 x 10-3 μm/s was observed. We present an analytical model that bridges the two regimes and fit this model to vesicle trajectories from control cells and cells with disrupted microtubule or actin filaments. Both treatments reduced the anomalous diffusion constant and the velocity by ~40-50%. Conclusions The mobility of sterol-containing vesicles on the short time scale could reflect dynamic rearrangements of the cytoskeleton, while directed transport of sterol vesicles occurs likely along both, microtubules and actin filaments. Spatially varying anomalous diffusion could contribute to fine-tuning and local regulation of intracellular sterol transport
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