2 research outputs found
Physics of Transport and Traffic Phenomena in Biology: from molecular motors and cells to organisms
Traffic-like collective movements are observed at almost all levels of
biological systems. Molecular motor proteins like, for example, kinesin and
dynein, which are the vehicles of almost all intra-cellular transport in
eukayotic cells, sometimes encounter traffic jam that manifests as a disease of
the organism. Similarly, traffic jam of collagenase MMP-1, which moves on the
collagen fibrils of the extracellular matrix of vertebrates, has also been
observed in recent experiments. Traffic-like movements of social insects like
ants and termites on trails are, perhaps, more familiar in our everyday life.
Experimental, theoretical and computational investigations in the last few
years have led to a deeper understanding of the generic or common physical
principles involved in these phenomena. In particular, some of the methods of
non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, pioneered almost a hundred years ago by
Einstein, Langevin and others, turned out to be powerful theoretical tools for
quantitaive analysis of models of these traffic-like collective phenomena as
these systems are intrinsically far from equilibrium. In this review we
critically examine the current status of our understanding, expose the
limitations of the existing methods, mention open challenging questions and
speculate on the possible future directions of research in this
interdisciplinary area where physics meets not only chemistry and biology but
also (nano-)technology.Comment: 33 page Review article, REVTEX text, 29 EPS and PS figure