Issue |
EPL
Volume 91, Number 6, September 2010
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 60001 | |
Number of page(s) | 6 | |
Section | General | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/91/60001 | |
Published online | 04 October 2010 |
Fokker-Planck approach to molecular motors
Departament d'Estructura i Constituents de la Matèria, Facultat de Física, Universitat de Barcelona Diagonal 647, E-08028 Barcelona, Spain, EU
Received:
5
March
2010
Accepted:
1
September
2010
Most of the known molecular motors are fueled by ATP hydrolysis. In vivo these machines work near their enzyme saturating regime and the speed is so fast that finer details are not experimentally observable. Molecular motors are usually modelled by overdamped Langevin equations with a two-state flashing potential where transition rates are related to the random hydrolysis process. We will present a theoretical analysis of this process, which shows that it can be approximated by a white-noise process. This implies that a Fokker-Planck equation can be a useful tool to study molecular motors in the ATP saturating regime. As a practical application we present a detailed study of the molecular F1-ATPase rotatory motor with a discussion on its energetics. Theoretical predictions are compared satisfactorily with experimental data in the appropriate limits, which are well delimited.
PACS: 05.40.-a – Fluctuation phenomena, random processes, noise, and Brownian motion / 05.10.Gg – Stochastic analysis methods (Fokker-Planck, Langevin, etc.) / 87.16.A- – Theory, modeling, and simulations
© EPLA, 2010
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