Pile-ups in protein transport
(PHYSorg.com Physics)

Anyone who has ever tried to find a way through a crowded pedestrian zone has-literally-run into the problem: While some people choose to weave their way through the gaps, others stick to the straight and narrow, and collisions are only a matter of time. Something very similar can happen during active protein transport in cells when molecular motors with different modes of locomotion share the same multilane highway (i.e. protein filament). Theoretical analyses carried out by LMU physicists led by Professor Erwin Frey, and now published in the journal Physical Review X, show how this comes to pass. The authors describe a newly developed model that captures the collective behavior of two types of motors and provides insight into the complex phenomena that can result.