How to calculate speed of muscle contraction from average speed of motor protein?
Answers
Explanation:
Molecular motors are central to a vast array of different processes with examples including cell crawling, cell division, chromosome segregation, intracellular trafficking, etc. These active processes are driven by motors of many different types moving about on both actin and microtubule filaments. We noted in the vignette on “What are the time scales for diffusion in cells?” (i.e. those bigger than several tens of microns) diffusion times become exorbitant and cells need to resort to motor-mediated directed transport, paid for at the cost of ATP hydrolysis. The presence of these motors makes it possible for cargos of many types including transport vesicles and even organelles to be directed to various places throughout the cell.