Quantifying intermittent transport in cell cytoplasm

TL;DR

This paper models the intermittent transport of particles like viruses in cell cytoplasm, estimating attachment times and probabilities of reaching nuclear pores, which enhances understanding of intracellular transport mechanisms.

Contribution

It introduces a coarse-grained model for intermittent cellular transport and provides asymptotic estimates for virus delivery times to nuclear pores.

Findings

Estimated mean attachment time to microtubules.

Derived probability of virus reaching nuclear pore.

Provided asymptotic formulas for transport efficiency.

Abstract

Active cellular transport is a fundamental mechanism for protein and vesicle delivery, cell cycle and molecular degradation. Viruses can hijack the transport system and use it to reach the nucleus. Most transport processes consist of intermittent dynamics, where the motion of a particle, such as a virus, alternates between pure Brownian and directed movement along microtubules. In this communication, we estimate the mean time for particle to attach to a microtubule network. This computation leads to a coarse grained equation of the intermittent motion in radial and cylindrical geometries. Finally, by using the degradation activity inside the cytoplasm, we obtain refined asymptotic estimations for the probability and the mean time a virus reaches a small nuclear pore.