Traffic Phenomena in Biology: From Molecular Motors to Organisms

Debashish Chowdhury, Andreas Schadschneider and Katsuhiro Nishinari
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Debashish Chowdhury: Indian Institute of Technology, Department of Physics
Andreas Schadschneider: Universität zu Köln, Institut für Theoretische Physik
Katsuhiro Nishinari: University of Tokyo, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Faculty of Engineering

A chapter in Traffic and Granular Flow’05, 2007, pp 223-238 from Springer

Abstract: Summary Traffic-like collective movements are observed at almost all levels of biological systems. Molecular motor proteins like, for example, kinesin and dynein, which are the vehicles of almost all intra-cellular transport in eukayotic cells, some-times encounter traffic jam that manifests as a disease of the organism. Similarly, traffic jam of collagenase MMP-1, which moves on the collagen fibrils of the extracellular matrix of vertebrates, has also been observed in recent experiments. Traffic-like movements of social insects like ants and termites on trails are, perhaps, more familiar in our everyday life. Experimental, theoretical and computational investigations in the last few years have led to a deeper understanding of the generic or common physical principles involved in these phenomena. In particular, some of the methods of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, pioneered almost a hundred years ago by Einstein, Langevin and others, turned out to be powerful theoretical tools for quantitative analysis of models of these traffic-like collective phenomena as these systems are intrinsically far from equilibrium. In this review we critically examine the current status of our understanding, expose the limitations of the existing methods, mention open challenging questions and speculate on the possible future directions of research in this interdisciplinary area where physics meets not only chemistry and biology but also (nano-)technology.

Keywords: Cellular Automaton; Average Speed; Social Insect; Molecular Motor; Open Boundary Condition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-47641-2_18

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