Phase transitions in systems with two species of molecular motors

Systems with two species of active molecular motors moving on (cytoskeletal) filaments into opposite directions are studied theoretically using driven lattice gas models. The motors can unbind from and rebind to the filaments. Two motors are more likely to bind on adjacent filament sites if they belong to the same species. These systems exhibit (i) Continuous phase transitions towards states with spontaneously broken symmetry, where one motor species is largely excluded from the filament, (ii) Hysteresis of the total current upon varying the relative concentrations of the two motor species, and (iii) Coexistence of traffic lanes with opposite directionality in multi-filament systems. These theoretical predictions should be experimentally accessible.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, epl style (.cls-file included), to appear in Europhys. Lett. (http://www.edpsciences.org/epl

Transport by molecular motors in the presence of static defects

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.Comment: 20 pages, latex, 7 figures, 1 tabl

Traffic of Molecular Motors

Molecular motors perform active movements along cytoskeletal filaments and drive the traffic of organelles and other cargo particles in cells. In contrast to the macroscopic traffic of cars, however, the traffic of molecular motors is characterized by a finite walking distance (or run length) after which a motor unbinds from the filament along which it moves. Unbound motors perform Brownian motion in the surrounding aqueous solution until they rebind to a filament. We use variants of driven lattice gas models to describe the interplay of their active movements, the unbound diffusion, and the binding/unbinding dynamics. If the motor concentration is large, motor-motor interactions become important and lead to a variety of cooperative traffic phenomena such as traffic jams on the filaments, boundary-induced phase transitions, and spontaneous symmetry breaking in systems with two species of motors. If the filament is surrounded by a large reservoir of motors, the jam length, i.e., the extension of the traffic jams is of the order of the walking distance. Much longer jams can be found in confined geometries such as tube-like compartments.Comment: 10 pages, latex, uses Springer styles (included), to appear in the Proceedings of "Traffic and Granular Flow 2005

Molecular motor traffic in a half-open tube

The traffic of molecular motors which interact through mutual exclusion is studied theoretically for half-open tube-like compartments. These half-open tubes mimic the shapes of axons. The mutual exclusion leads to traffic jams or density plateaus on the filaments. A phase transition is obtained when the motor velocity changes sign. We identify the relevant length scales and characterize the jamming behavior using both analytical approximations and Monte Carlo simulations of lattice models.Comment: 14 pages, 5 postscript figure

On two-dimensional Bessel functions

The general properties of two-dimensional generalized Bessel functions are discussed. Various asymptotic approximations are derived and applied to analyze the basic structure of the two-dimensional Bessel functions as well as their nodal lines.Comment: 25 pages, 17 figure

Spatial distribution of organic carbon in the Atacama Desert, Chile

The Atacama Desert in northern Chile is known as the driest region on earth; however traces of life, can still be found. Soils are the habitat and reservoir for plants and microorganisms, which leave their fingerprints as organic residues. Here we identify and quantify organic carbon in soil profiles and along potential plant dispersal corridors in the Atacama Desert. We hypothesize that preferential pathways or barriers of the dispersal of life exist, which can be related to soil properties such as bulk density. We further assume that due to dust and salt accumulation at the surface, in particular the subsoils will reveal an unique though little explored archive of organic matter. The analytical assessment of Corg at very low levels is challenging. It was found that SOC in hyperarid soils ranged from 1.8 – 125 µg C per g soil for 0-1 m (1). We here present an improved Corg analysis, which is based on a temperature gradient method (DIN19539; Soli TOC cube, Elementar, Hanau). This allows combustion of samples with up to 5 g sample weight without the need to remove carbonate. This avoids loss and increases precision of Corg quantification at lowest concentrations. We can show that Corg contents decrease from 1.47 % to 0.1 % in the first 14 km of the gradient. However, first results suggest that within the hyper-arid core of the Atacama Corg contents increase. This gives first hints to the vegetation history of the desert and the dispersal of life

Walks of molecular motors in two and three dimensions

Molecular motors interacting with cytoskeletal filaments undergo peculiar random walks consisting of alternating sequences of directed movements along the filaments and diffusive motion in the surrounding solution. An ensemble of motors is studied which interacts with a single filament in two and three dimensions. The time evolution of the probability distribution for the bound and unbound motors is determined analytically. The diffusion of the motors is strongly enhanced parallel to the filament. The analytical expressions are in excellent agreement with the results of Monte Carlo simulations.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, to be published in Europhys. Let

A model for bidirectional traffic of cytoskeletal motors

We introduce a stochastic lattice gas model including two particle species and two parallel lanes. One lane with exclusion interaction and directed motion and the other lane without exclusion and unbiased diffusion, mimicking a micotubule filament and the surrounding solution. For a high binding affinity to the filament, jam-like situations dominate the system's behaviour. The fundamental process of position exchange of two particles is approximated. In the case of a many-particle system, we were able to identify a regime in which the system is rather homogenous presenting only small accumulations of particles and a regime in which an important fraction of all particles accumulates in the same cluster. Numerical data proposes that this cluster formation will occur at all densities for large system sizes. Coupling of several filaments leads to an enhanced cluster formation compared to the uncoupled system, suggesting that efficient bidirectional transport on one-dimensional filaments relies on long-ranged interactions and track formation.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figure

Crowd oil not crude oil

Climate change represents an existential, global threat to humanity, yet its delocalized nature complicates climate action. Here, the authors propose retrofitting air conditioning units as integrated, scalable, and renewable-powered devices capable of decentralized CO2 conversion and energy democratization

Detectable contributions of colloids to soil P and C content in arid and hyperarid region of the Atacama (Chile)

Atacama Desert is mainly known as the driest place on Earth where life has been developed under arid to hyper arid conditions since Oligocene-Miocene. Therefore, soils of Atacama contain fingerprints of past and present life which might be used as an analog to study the evolution of life under equivalent arid conditions, like Mars. In this study, we quantify the colloidal phosphorus and carbon distribution in the first 10 cm of soil profile along an altitudinal transect. Samples were taken along a transect in the region of Quebrada Aroma spanning from the arid Percordillera of the Andes (2720 m a.s.l.) towards the hyper arid core of the desert (1340 m a.s.l.). Water dispersible colloids (WDC) were separated and measured using the field-flow-field fractionation (FFF) method and subsequently their Corg and P content were characterized and quantified by detectors (DLS, ICP-MS, UV, OCD, fluorescence). Data was compared to total C, P and (available) Olsen-P also measured in the samples. The Olsen-P (available-P) varied within the Aroma transect from ca. 2 to 8 mg P kg-1, but was not related to either altitude or depth in the upper soil (0-10 cm). Colloidal P contents ranged from <0.1 to 4 mg P kg-1 soil, with increasing trend from low to higher elevations. Thereby, suggesting an increasing proportion of the available P potential being present in the WDC fraction. The Colloidal Corg content of the Aroma transect did range from 65 to 90 (for sites 2020 to 1340m) and 110 mg Corg kg-1 soil WDC (2720 m). Colloidal Corg content as a function of the altitude showed a similar trend to the Corg content of the soils: the highest colloidal Corg content was found at 2720 m. The proportion of soil Corg within the colloidal fraction was up to 6% of the bulk soil organic matter (OM) content, as the OM content was intensively enriched in the colloidal fraction. Further quantification of phosphorus and carbon content in WDC in deeper part of soil is required to obtain a more comprehensive view of role of colloidal inputs and dynamics in the Atacama Desert