Driven transport on a flexible polymer with particle recycling: a model inspired by transcription and translation

TL;DR

This paper extends exclusion process models to include a flexible polymer lattice and particle recycling, revealing how polymer conformation and particle density influence transport dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a generalized model of particle transport on a flexible polymer with recycling, bridging the gap between static lattice models and biological processes.

Findings

Transport efficiency depends on polymer conformation.

Particle recycling affects overall transport dynamics.

Polymer structure is influenced by particle density.

Abstract

Many theoretical works have attempted to coarse grain gene expression at the level of transcription and translation via frameworks based on exclusion processes. Usually in these models the three-dimensional conformation of the substrates (DNA and mRNA) is neglected, and particles move on a static unidimensional lattice in contact to an infinite reservoir. In this work we generalise the paradigmatic exclusion process and study the transport of particles along a unidimensional polymer-like flexible lattice immersed in a three-dimensional particle reservoir. We study the recycling of particles in the reservoir, how the transport is influenced by the global conformation of the lattice and, in turn, how particle density dictates the structure of the polymer.