Collective effects in intra-cellular molecular motor transport: coordination, cooperation and competition

Abstract

Molecular motors do not work in isolation in-vivo. We highlight some of the coordinations, cooperations and competitions that determine the collective properties of molecular motors in eukaryotic cells. In the context of traffic-like movement of motors on a track, we emphasize the importance of single-motor bio-chemical cycle and enzymatic activity on their collective spatio-temporal organization. Our modelling strategy is based on a synthesis-the same model describes the single-motor mechano-chemistry at sufficiently low densities whereas at higher densities it accounts for the collective flow properties and the density profiles of the motors. We consider two specific examples, namely, traffic of single-headed kinesin motors KIF1A on a microtubule track and ribosome traffic on a messenger RNA track.