Transport Facilitated by Rapid Binding to Elastic Tethers

TL;DR

This paper models how particles diffuse in cells when they reversibly bind to elastic tethers, revealing that multiple particles can experience enhanced transport due to these elastic interactions.

Contribution

It derives effective equations for particle transport considering elastic tether binding, highlighting a novel collective enhancement effect in biological diffusion.

Findings

Single particle diffusion is weakly hindered by elastic tethers.

Multiple particles experience a strong enhancement in transport.

Elastic tether effects may be relevant in various biological contexts.

Abstract

Diffusion in cell biology is important and complicated. Diffusing particles must contend with a complex environment as they make their way through the cell. We analyze a particular type of complexity that arises when diffusing particles reversibly bind to elastically tethered binding partners. Using asymptotic analysis, we derive effective equations for the transport of both single and multiple particles in the presence of such elastic tethers. We show that for the case of linear elasticity and simple binding kinetics, the elastic tethers have a weak hindering effect on particle motion when only one particle is present, while, remarkably, strongly enhancing particle motion when multiple particles are present. We give a physical interpretation of this result that suggests a similar effect may be present in other biological settings.