Sojourn-time distribution of virus capsid in interchromatin corrals of a cell nucleus

TL;DR

This paper investigates the distribution of virus capsid sojourn times in cell nucleus corrals, revealing slow decay behaviors and discussing the influence of block size and process memory on diffusion characteristics.

Contribution

It introduces a model for the sojourn-time distribution of virus capsids considering Gaussian fluctuations and analyzes the effects of block size and process memory.

Findings

Sojourn-time distribution tends to decay slowly.

Average sojourn time depends on block size.

Discussion on (non-)Markovian nature of diffusion process.

Abstract

Virus capsids in interchromatin corrals of a cell nucleus are experimentally known to exhibit anomalous diffusion as well as normal diffusion, leading to the Gaussian distribution of the diffusion-exponent fluctuations over the corrals. Here, the sojourn-time distribution of the virus capsid in local areas of the corral, i.e., probability distribution of the sojourn time characterizing diffusion in the local areas, is examined. Such an area is regarded as a virtual cubic block, the diffusion property in which is normal or anomalous. The distribution, in which the Gaussian fluctuation is incorporated, is shown to tend to slowly decay. Then, the block-size dependence of average sojourn time is discussed. A comment is also made on (non-)Markovianity of the process of moving through the blocks.