Abstract
Transport at microscopic length scales is essential in biological systems and various technologies, including microfluidics. Recent experiments achieved self-organized transport phenomena in microtubule active matter using light to modulate motor-protein activity in time and space. Here, we introduce a novel phenomenological model to explain such experiments. Our model, based on spatially modulated particle interactions, reveals a possible mechanism for emergent transport phenomena in light-controlled active matter, including motility and contraction. In particular, the model’s analytic treatment elucidates the conservation of the center of mass of activated particles as a fundamental mechanism of material transport and demonstrates the necessity of memory for sustained motility. Furthermore, we generalize the model to explain other phenomena, like microtubule aster–aster interactions induced by more complicated activation geometries. Our results demonstrate that the model provides a possible foundation for the phenomenological understanding of light-controlled active matter, and it will enable the design and optimization of transport protocols for active matter devices.
Highlights
Transport at micron length scales is essential in technologies such as microfluidics [1, 2] and many biological processes, including cell motility [3, 4], cell division [5], and intracellular material transport [6, 7]
While in most technological applications, transport arises as the response of a system to externally applied forces, biological systems rely on molecular self-organization to achieve material transport
There have been various in vivo and in vitro studies trying to address biological transport phenomena at the micron length scales
Summary
Transport at micron length scales is essential in technologies such as microfluidics [1, 2] and many biological processes, including cell motility [3, 4], cell division [5], and intracellular material transport [6, 7]. One area of active matter research focuses on the behavior of different classes of active Brownian particles [10,11,12,13,14] These systems have been examined, for example, to understand phenomena such as the emergent phase separation arising from repulsive interactions [15,16,17]. Particle-based active matter systems focus on the emergent dynamics of individual agents, modeling the dynamics of interacting populations of molecules, cells, or organisms. Protein-based active matter systems, realized experimentally by mixtures of microtubules and motor proteins [23,24,25], spontaneously organize structures including contractile networks, microtubule asters, and nematic phases that exhibit long-range order. The interactions arise in our model, since microtubules of one particle overlap with the microtubules of neigh-
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