Different modes of cooperative transport by molecular motors

Cargo transport by molecular motors is ubiquitous in all eukaryotic cells and is typically driven cooperatively by several molecular motors, which may belong to one or several motor species like kinesin, dynein or myosin. These motor proteins transport cargos such as RNAs, protein complexes or organelles along filaments, from which they unbind after a finite run length. Understanding how these motors interact and how their movements are coordinated and regulated is a central and challenging problem in studies of intracellular transport. In this thesis, we describe a general theoretical framework for the analysis of such transport processes, which enables us to explain the behavior of intracellular cargos based on the transport properties of individual motors and their interactions. Motivated by recent in vitro experiments, we address two different modes of transport: unidirectional transport by two identical motors and cooperative transport by actively walking and passively diffusing motors. The case of cargo transport by two identical motors involves an elastic coupling between the motors that can reduce the motors’ velocity and/or the binding time to the filament. We show that this elastic coupling leads, in general, to four distinct transport regimes. In addition to a weak coupling regime, kinesin and dynein motors are found to exhibit a strong coupling and an enhanced unbinding regime, whereas myosin motors are predicted to attain a reduced velocity regime. All of these regimes, which we derive both by analytical calculations and by general time scale arguments, can be explored experimentally by varying the elastic coupling strength. In addition, using the time scale arguments, we explain why previous studies came to different conclusions about the effect and relevance of motor-motor interference. In this way, our theory provides a general and unifying framework for understanding the dynamical behavior of two elastically coupled molecular motors. The second mode of transport studied in this thesis is cargo transport by actively pulling and passively diffusing motors. Although these passive motors do not participate in active transport, they strongly enhance the overall cargo run length. When an active motor unbinds, the cargo is still tethered to the filament by the passive motors, giving the unbound motor the chance to rebind and continue its active walk. We develop a stochastic description for such cooperative behavior and explicitly derive the enhanced run length for a cargo transported by one actively pulling and one passively diffusing motor. We generalize our description to the case of several pulling and diffusing motors and find an exponential increase of the run length with the number of involved motors.

Level thesis:degree_level

thesis.doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher

Universität Potsdam

Year

2012

Author dc:creator

• Berger, Florian

Contributors dc:contributor

• Lipowsky, Reinhard

• molekulare Motoren
• kooperativer Transport
• intrazellulärer Transport
• elastische Kopplung
• stochastische Prozesse
• molecular motors
• cooperative transport
• intracellular transport
• elastic coupling
• stochastic processes

Statement dc:rights

• Creative Commons - Namensnennung, Nicht kommerziell, Weitergabe zu gleichen Bedingungen 3.0 Deutschland

Repository record source_url

https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/5813

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:kobv.de-opus4-uni-potsdam:5813