PACS 87.16.Uv -Subcellular structure and processes -Active transport processes PACS 87.16.Nn -Subcellular structure and processes -Motor proteins (myosin, kinesin dynein) PACS 87.10.Mn -General theory and mathematical aspects -Stochastic modeling Abstract -Inside cells, various cargos are transported by teams of molecular motors. Intriguingly, the motors involved generally have opposite pulling directions, and the resulting cargo dynamics is a biased stochastic motion. It is an open question how the cell can control this bias. Here we develop a model which takes explicitly into account the elastic coupling of the cargo with each motor. We show that bias can be simply controlled or even reversed in a counterintuitive manner via a change in the external force exerted on the cargo or a variation of the environmental properties. Furthermore, the superdiffusive behavior found at short time scales indicates the emergence of motor cooperation induced by cargo-mediated coupling.

We discuss a theoretical model for bidirectional cargo transport in biological cells, which is driven by teams of molecular motors and subject to thermal fluctuations. The model describes explicitly the directed motion of the molecular motors on the filament. The motor-cargo coupling is implemented via linear springs. By means of extensive Monte Carlo simulations we show that the model describes the experimentally observed regimes of anomalous diffusion, i.e. subdiffusive behavior at short times followed by superdiffusion at intermediate times. The model results indicate that subdiffuse regime is induced by thermal fluctuations while the superdiffusive motion is generated by correlations of the motors' activity. We also tested the efficiency of bidirectional cargo transport in crowded areas by measuring its ability to pass barriers with increased viscosity. Our results show a remarkable gain of efficiency for high viscosities.arXiv:1409.7792v1 [physics.bio-ph]

Intracellular cargos which are transported by molecular motors move stochastically along cytoskeleton filaments. In particular for bidirectionally transported cargos it is an open question whether the characteristics of their motion can result from pure stochastic fluctuations or whether some coordination of the motors is needed. The results of a mean-field model of cargo-motors dynamics, which was proposed by Müller et al. [1] suggest the existence of high motility states which would result from a stochastic tug-of-war. Here we analyze a non-mean field extension of their model, that takes explicitly the position of each motor into account. We find that high motility states then disappear. We consider also a mutual motor-motor activation, as an explicit mechanism of motor coordination. We show that the results of the mean-field model are recovered only in case of a strong motor-motor activation in the limit of a high number of motors.

Many different types of cellular cargos are transported bidirectionally along microtubules by teams of molecular motors. The motion of this cargo-motors system has been experimentally characterized in vivo as processive with rather persistent directionality. Different theoretical approaches have been suggested in order to explore the origin of this kind of motion. An effective theoretical approach, introduced by Müller et al. [9], describes the cargo dynamics as a tug-of-war between different kinds of motors. An alternative approach has been suggested recently by Kunwar et al. [7], who considered the coupling between motor and cargo in more detail. Based on this framework we introduce a model considering single motor positions which we propagate in continuous time. Furthermore, we analyze the possible influence of the discrete time update schemes used in previous publications on the system's dynamic.