TY - JOUR
T1 - Active random forces can drive differential cellular positioning and enhance motor-driven transport
AU - Wolgemuth, Charles W.
AU - Sun, Sean X.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by National Institute of Health Grant U54CA210172.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Wolgemuth and Sun. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). Two months after publication it is available to the public under an Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0).
PY - 2020/9
Y1 - 2020/9
N2 - Cells are remarkable machines capable of performing an exquisite range of functions, many of which depend crucially on the activity of molecular motors that generate forces. Recent experiments have shown that intracellular random movements are not solely thermal in nature but also arise from stochasticity in the forces from these molecular motors. Here we consider the effects of these nonthermal random forces. We show that stochastic motor force not only enhances diffusion but also leads to size-dependent transport of objects that depends on the local density of the cytoskeletal filaments on which motors operate. As a consequence, we find that objects that are larger than the mesh size of the cytoskeleton should be attracted to regions of high cytoskeletal density, while objects that are smaller than the mesh size will preferentially avoid these regions. These results suggest a mechanism for size-based organelle positioning and also suggest that motor-driven random forces can additionally enhance motor-driven transport.
AB - Cells are remarkable machines capable of performing an exquisite range of functions, many of which depend crucially on the activity of molecular motors that generate forces. Recent experiments have shown that intracellular random movements are not solely thermal in nature but also arise from stochasticity in the forces from these molecular motors. Here we consider the effects of these nonthermal random forces. We show that stochastic motor force not only enhances diffusion but also leads to size-dependent transport of objects that depends on the local density of the cytoskeletal filaments on which motors operate. As a consequence, we find that objects that are larger than the mesh size of the cytoskeleton should be attracted to regions of high cytoskeletal density, while objects that are smaller than the mesh size will preferentially avoid these regions. These results suggest a mechanism for size-based organelle positioning and also suggest that motor-driven random forces can additionally enhance motor-driven transport.
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U2 - 10.1091/MBC.E19-11-0629
DO - 10.1091/MBC.E19-11-0629
M3 - Article
C2 - 32726176
AN - SCOPUS:85091125990
SN - 1059-1524
VL - 31
SP - 2283
EP - 2288
JO - Molecular biology of the cell
JF - Molecular biology of the cell
IS - 20
ER -