Simulation of Interaction between Motor Protein and Cytoskeleton - The Movement of Microtubule Shuttle
Date Issued
2009
Date
2009
Author(s)
Ma, Tzu-Chen
Abstract
Kinesins and microtubules are important functional enzymes in cells and truly nano-motors. With the advantages of their size, high chemo-mechanical transduction efficiency (ATPase), and robust movement in vitro it is intriguing to integrate these nano-motors with artificial machines for micro-scale actuations. Many studies proposed and implemented this concept to design different kinds of bio-sensors or other micro-/ nano-scale devices recently. However, the detailed mechanistic behavior has not been proposed and discussed. We studied the functionality of kinesin and microtubule and proposed a simplified model of the interaction between microtubules and micro-machined structures. In the result of this thesis, in order to have high efficiency of microtubule guiding in vitro, the density of kinesins coated on the bottom surface in the microfluidic channel influences the behavior of guided microtubule movement. In case of microtubule collision with channel sidewall, the density of kinesins coated on the surface nearby the sidewall should be as higher as possible to make microtubule easy to be recaptured by next functional kinesin and then keep guided by the wall. On the other hand, to control the microtubule movement by adding electric field, the guiding efficiency is relatively high in lower density of kinesins coated on the plane surface. These results of modeling microtubule movement can become a guideline for future study of microtubule guiding technology in microfluidic channel.
Subjects
Motor Protein
Cytoskeleton
Kinesin
Microtubule
Computer Simulation
Statistical Mechanics
Monte Carlo Simulation
Type
thesis
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