AsianScientist (May 18, 2015) – Researchers at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) have discovered that endosomal transport in cells follows a Lévy walk pattern of movement rather than Brownian motion. Their findings, published in Nature Materials, could lead to the design of more efficient transport models.
A Lévy walk or flight, named after a French mathematician Professor Paul Lévy, is a mix of long trajectories and short random movements. Numerous short movements are made within a small area and occasionally a long stride to a distant area, where the action is repeated. This particular motion pattern is observed in humans and animals.
While scientists had previously studied the pattern in humans and animals of inherent intelligence, this research is the first to identify this pattern of movement in molecular motors.
Dr. Steve Granick, director of the IBS Center for Soft and Living Matter and one of the authors of the research, explained why the significance of the findings:
“We didn’t want to repeat what other people did in the past. People knew that jellyfish, sharks, birds and people can execute this important process (Lévy walk). We discovered that even molecules without a brain can do the same thing. And we discovered the secret of how it’s accomplished.”
Molecular motors are responsible for the intracellular transport of many cargoes. The researchers observed how these motors carry cargo (endosome) as they move along microtubules, an intracellular highway network.
The rule they discovered is this—when molecular motors carry cargo, their purpose is to find a destination and they thoroughly explore their immediate environment. If a destination is not found, they travel further, repeating the action until a destination is found.
“Nature is more clever than we are. It finds this efficient way to engineer this marvelous result without being smart, without (using any pre-existing) memory and it saves them energy,” added Granick.
Granick highlighted the impact of the research and the possible future applications of the findings:
“The findings of our study may help us to better understand our cells and how our body is engineered,” he said. “At the IBS Center for Soft and Living Matter in Korea, the rule we discovered holds promise to engineer new kinds of artificial active materials.”
The article can be found at: Chen et al. (2015) Memoryless Self-reinforcing Directionality In Endosomal Active Transport Within Living Cells.
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Source: Institute for Basic Science.
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