Elastically coupled molecular motors

Some hints

Short description

On this page you can see the animation of a model for elastically coupled molecular motors. The full description of the model is given in this preprint. The blue color shows the molecular track, the red color the elastic backbone, the green color shows attached motors and the grey color detached motors.

The parameters t_a and t_d describe the mean time a motor spends in the attached and detached state (in seconds). If the machine performance allows it, this should be real time. All other quantities are given in dimensionless units. The backbone stiffness expresses the parameter gamma.

Point force/Homogeneous force/Both

If point force is chosen, the force acts on the left end of the backbone. The homogeneous force is distributed uniformly over the backbone. Both models can be compared upon each other, too. Anyway, as we show in the paper, both models are equivalent.

Smooth/Rough animation

The smooth animation option draws the picture several times in order to appear smoother and uses double buffering. If you have a slow computer or if you are running your browser on a remote machine you should prefer rough animation which flashes a bit but consumes much less system resources.

About the simulation

The main purpose of this applet is a graphic representatation of our model. The Monte-Carlo simulations we used to calculate the force-velocity-relations in the paper were running with larger numbers of continuously placed motors and periodic boundary conditions in order to reach sufficient accuracy.