Abstract
Molecular motors play an important role in the organization of cytoskeletal filament networks. These nanometer-sized natural molecular machines opened up a new frontier of nano-technology. This article describes biomolecular nano-machines, their internal structures, and dynamical interactions between molecular motors and their molecular tracks which reorganize a network of long protein filaments, particularly during cell division to form cytoskeleton of daughter cells. Towards the end, the article also takes up some still-to-be resolved matters and prospects for future developments in this exciting multidisciplinary area of science.
Highlights
Spontaneous, self-generated movement is a hallmark of almost all biological systems
This article describes biomolecular nano-machines, their internal structures, and dynamical interactions between molecular motors and their molecular tracks which reorganize a network of long protein filaments, during cell division to form cytoskeleton of daughter cells
Focusing on fundamental physical principles underlying the collective phenomena resulting from the interaction of many molecular motors and linear protein filaments, we describe the self-organization of long protein filament networks, during cell division to form cytoskeleton of daughter cells
Summary
Spontaneous, self-generated movement is a hallmark of almost all biological systems. Even cells that are incapable of active movement within their environment perform essential intracellular motility processes. K. Dutta cantly increased our understanding regarding the function and role of molecular motors in the cell, how Nature designed these tiny powerful ingenious nano-scale devices to achieve coordination and collective action in all living organisms, is still remains a mystery. The movement of the molecular motors along these molecular tracks is characterized by unidirectionality (yielding non-equilibrium behavior), discrete steps, and intrinsic stochasticity. All these events that take place stochastically and characterized by the intrinsic rate are known as Poisson processes in statistical physics. The dynamic interactions of the motors and filaments exhibit cooperative collective behavior yielding a rich variety of stable self-organized structure [11] [12] [13]. Our discussion suggests a new perspective to our understanding of collective motion, a topic of increasing interest among physicists, mathematicians, engineers and biologists
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