Berlin 2015 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 22: Posters: Cytoskeletal filaments

BP 22.10: Poster

Tuesday, March 17, 2015, 14:00–16:00, Poster A

active transport along cytoskeletal filaments in the presence of anisotropy — •zeinab sadjadi and m reza shaebani — Department of Theoretical Physics, Saarland University, Saarbrucken, Germany

Cytoskeleton consists of a variety of interconnected biopolymer networks, including filamentous actin, microtubules, and several types of intermediate filaments. Motor proteins perform directed motion along cytoskeleton due to the structural asymmetry of the filaments. The long distance intracellular transport becomes feasible through the active transport on microtubule networks which span through the entire cell. On the other hand, the dynamics is relatively slow on actin filaments which can be found e.g. near the cell membrane, and have a more random structure i.e. a more uniform polarity. One usually observes a gradual change in the cytoskeletal anisotropy from the nucleus to the cell membrane, as the relative contribution of the microtubules and actin filaments changes. We study the effect of cytoskeletal anisotropy on the transport properties of motor proteins. Different scenarios for the gradient of anisotropy are investigated in the framework of a previously developed analytical approach, and the results are compared with Monte Carlo simulations.