Traffic of cytoskeletal motors with disordered attachment rates

TL;DR

This paper extends lattice-based models of intracellular transport to include effects of tau proteins on motor attachment rates, providing insights into motor traffic regulation with potential physiological implications.

Contribution

It introduces a multi-species stochastic model incorporating tau influence on motor attachment, with exact solutions in certain limits and an approximate approach for low-density regimes.

Findings

Good agreement between approximate theory and simulations for tau-dependent motor current

Identification of regimes where tau proteins modulate motor traffic

Discussion of physiological relevance of tau-induced transport regulation

Abstract

Motivated by experimental results on the interplay between molecular motors and tau proteins, we extend lattice-based models of intracellular transport to include a second species of particle which locally influences the motor-filament attachment rate. We consider various exactly solvable limits of a stochastic multi-particle model before focusing on the low-motor-density regime. Here, an approximate treatment based on the random walk behaviour of single motors gives good quantitative agreement with simulation results for the tau-dependence of the motor current. Finally, we discuss the possible physiological implications of our results.