| Thursday, April 28, 2016 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM |
| Main Campus - Engineering Office Tower - 226: Applied Math Conference Room |
| Hui-Shun Kuan, Department of Physics, University of Colorado Boudler Nonlinear dynamics and phase space flows to understand molecular motor motion on antiparallel lanes Motor protein motion on biopolymers can be described by driven diffusive models related to the totally asymmetric simple exclusion process (TASEP), which is simple model of hopping, interacting particles in one dimension originally inspired by motion of traffic on highways. Based on recent experiments on the motion of kinesin-4 motors on antiparallel microtubule overlaps, we develop a model incorporating the TASEP on two antiparallel lanes with binding kinetics (particles can be added and removed) and lane switching (particles change direction). We determine the steady-state motor density profiles and phase diagram using phase space flows at the mean-field level and compared our results to kinetic Monte Carlo simulations. Phases previously identified for the single-filament model occur in the limit of zero switching rate. In addition, lane switching couples the density profiles on the two lanes and can lead to a new phase not possible for a single filament: switching moves motors from the higher density lane to lower density lane, causing local jamming and creating multiple domain walls. We determine the phase diagram of the model for both symmetric and general boundary conditions. |