Collective behaviour of protein motors
FP4 — Training and Mobility of Researchers
- Duration
- 1996-03-01 → 1998-02-28
- EU contribution
- —
- Participants
- 2
- Scheme
- RGI
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Project objective
Protein motors are biological macromolecules which are driven by chemical energy and perform mechanical work. They can operate as single particles or they can cooperate in groups. This project is a detailed theoretical analysis of the behaviour of cooperating motor proteins in the framework of simplified stochastic models. Such models allow the calculation of the velocity of the motor as a function of the externally applied force and the ATP concentration. Various questions will be addressed: If the particles are rigidly coupled, cooperation can lead to dynamical phase transitions in the behaviour of the motor. An important problem is the modification of these cooperative effects if the rigidity of the system is relaxed and the particles have freedom to fluctuate individually. In a flexible incommensurate system, soliton-like defects could play an important role. The onset of cooperativity for increasing number of motor molecules will also be studied.
Original text from CORDIS.
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Data: CORDIS, © European Union