# Generic transport mechanisms for molecular traffic in cellular protrusions

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a lattice gas model to analyze molecular motor transport in cellular protrusions, revealing mechanisms for motor localization and task sharing that optimize energy use and are governed by strong correlations.

## Contribution

It presents a novel analytical approach to understanding how active and diffusive transport mechanisms interact in cellular protrusions, highlighting the role of correlations in motor dynamics.

## Key findings

- Identification of a mechanism for motor tip localization.
- Demonstration of task sharing between active and diffusive transport.
- Analytical calculation of reduced active currents due to correlations.

## Abstract

Transport of molecular motors along protein filaments in a half-closed geometry is a common feature of biologically relevant processes in cellular protrusions. Using a lattice gas model we study how the interplay between active and diffusive transport and mass conservation leads to localised domain walls and tip localisation of the motors. We identify a mechanism for task sharing between the active motors (maintaining a gradient) and the diffusive motion (transport to the tip), which ensures that energy consumption is low and motor exchange mostly happens at the tip. These features are attributed to strong nearest-neighbour correlations that lead to a strong reduction of active currents, which we calculate analytically using an exact moment-identity, and might prove useful for the understanding of correlations and active transport also in more elaborate systems.