Npc

We demonstrate that bound mobility via tethered diffusion can be engineered into a synthetic gel using protein fragments derived from the nuclear pore complex.

We develop a model motivated by features of the nuclear pore complex (NPC) which provides a framework to control binding-induced selective transport in bipolymeric materials.

Michael Stefferson's paper "Effects of soft interactions and bound mobility on diffusion in crowded environments: a model of sticky and slippery obstacles" was accepted for publication by Physical Biology.

There are many biological systems in which tracer particles diffuse in a crowded environment. We implemented a lattice Monte Carlo model to analyze the effects of binding kinetics, bound motion, and obstacle size on tracer diffusive in the presence of soft obstacles.

We used nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to show that FG repeats are highly dynamic IDPs, stabilized by the cellular environment. Fast transport is supported because the rapid dynamics of transport factor-FG interactions.