Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: In the cellular phenomena of cytoplasmic streaming, molecular motors carrying cargo along a network of microtubules entrain the surrounding fluid. The piconewton forces produced by individual motors are sufficient to deform long microtubules, as are the collective fluid flows generated by many moving motors. Studies of streaming during oocyte development in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster have shown a transition from a spatially disordered cytoskeleton, supporting flows with only short-ranged correlations, to an ordered state with a cell-spanning vortical flow. To test the hypothesis that this transition is driven by fluid-structure interactions, we study a discrete-filament model and a coarse-grained continuum theory for motors moving on a deformable cytoskeleton, both of which are shown to exhibit a swirling instability to spontaneous large-scale rotational motion, as observed.
Source: Physical Review Letters
Language: English
Subfield: Cell Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,750
Awards: The Physical Mechanics of Swimming Bacteria, Biomechanics of Ciliated Tissues, Collaborative Research: Multiscale Study of Active Cellular Matter: Simulation, Modeling, and Analysis, Biomechanics of Ciliated Tissues, G4684385594, Geometric, Topological, and Statistical Dynamics in Soft Matter and Mathematical Biology
OpenAlex ID: W3080410778