Analysis of microtubule motion due to drag from kinesin walkers

TL;DR

This paper models the nonlinear wave propagation on tethered microtubules caused by kinesin-induced drag, revealing traveling wave solutions and their properties through analytical and numerical methods.

Contribution

It introduces a mathematical model for microtubule waves influenced by kinesin and cytoplasmic flow, analyzing their existence and characteristics.

Findings

Traveling wave solutions exist on tethered microtubules.

Solutions can be flat or helical, with scale invariance.

Analytical and numerical results agree on wave properties.

Abstract

We analyze the nonlinear waves that propagate on a microtubule that is tethered at its minus end due to kinesin walking on it, as is seen during the fluid mixing caused by cytoplasmic streaming in Drosophila oocytes.The model we use assumes that the microtubule can be modeled as an elastic string in a viscous medium. The effect of the kinesin is to apply a force tangential to the microtubule and we also consider the addition of a uniform cytoplasmic velocity field. We show that travelling wave solutions exist and analyze their properties. There exist scale invariant families of solutions and solutions can exist that are flat or helical. The relationship between the period and wavelength is obtained by both analytic and numerical means. Numerical implementation of the equation of motion verifies our analytical predictions.