Issue |
EPL
Volume 93, Number 2, March 2011
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 28006 | |
Number of page(s) | 6 | |
Section | Interdisciplinary Physics and Related Areas of Science and Technology | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/93/28006 | |
Published online | 07 February 2011 |
Stall force of polymerizing microtubules and filament bundles
Physics Department, TU Dortmund University - 44221 Dortmund, Germany, EU
Received:
19
October
2010
Accepted:
5
January
2011
We investigate stall force and polymerization kinetics of rigid protofilaments in a microtubule or interacting filaments in bundles under an external load force in the framework of a discrete growth model. We introduce the concecpt of polymerization cycles to describe the stochastic growth kinetics, which allows us to derive an exact expression for the stall force. We find that the stall force is independent of ensemble geometry and load distribution. Furthermore, the stall force is proportional to the number of filaments and increases linearly with the strength of lateral filament interactions. These results are corroborated by simulations, which also show a strong influence of ensemble geometry on growth kinetics below the stall force.
PACS: 87.16.Ka – Filaments, microtubules, their networks, and supramolecular assemblies / 87.16.A- – Theory, modeling, and simulations / 87.15.rp – Polymerization
© EPLA, 2011
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.