Self-organized Pattern Formation in Motor-Microtubule Mixtures

TL;DR

This paper introduces a hydrodynamic model explaining pattern formation in motor-microtubule mixtures, reproducing experimentally observed vortex and aster arrangements and their transitions.

Contribution

It presents a novel hydrodynamic framework that captures various stable patterns and their phase transitions in motor-microtubule systems.

Findings

Patterns include vortices, asters, and mixed states.

Model reproduces experimentally observed steady states.

Sequence of patterns corresponds to phase diagram trajectories.

Abstract

We propose and study a hydrodynamic model for pattern formation in mixtures of molecular motors and microtubules. The steady state patterns we obtain in different regimes of parameter space include arrangements of vortices and asters separately as well as aster-vortex mixtures and fully disordered states. Such stable steady states are observed in experiments in vitro. The sequence of patterns obtained in the experiments can be associated with smooth trajectories in a non-equilibrium phase diagram for our model.