PERSISTENT PATTERNS IN MICROTUBULE DIPOLE LATTICES

Shubhendu Nandi (), Neil F. Johnson and Joshua L. Cohn
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Shubhendu Nandi: Department of Physics, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida 33124, USA
Neil F. Johnson: Department of Physics, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida 33124, USA
Joshua L. Cohn: Department of Physics, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida 33124, USA

Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), 2013, vol. 16, issue 08, 1-15

Abstract: Microtubules (MTs) are cytoskeletal protein polymers orchestrating a host of important cellular functions including, but not limited to, cell support, cell division, cell motility and cell transport. We construct a toy-model of the MT lattice composed of classical vector Ising spins (dipole moments) representing the tubulin molecules, the building block of MTs. Nearest-neighbor (NN) and next-nearest-neighbor (NNN) interactions are considered within an anisotropic dielectric medium. As a consequence of the helical topology, certain spin orientations render the lattice frustrated with NN ferroelectric and NNN antiferroelectric bonds. Mapping the problem to a 2D Ising model and employing Monte Carlo methods we find that frozen clusters of spins exist at human physiological temperatures. This suggests a novel biological mechanism for storing information in living organisms, whereby the classical tubulin spin states become information bits and information gets stored in MTs in a way that is robust to thermal fluctuations.

Keywords: Microtubule; dipole lattice; Monte Carlo simulation; Ising model; frustration; information storage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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DOI: 10.1142/S0219525913500331

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