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Enhanced reaction kinetics in biological cells

Nature Physics volume 4, pages 134–137 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

The cell cytoskeleton is a striking example of an ‘active’ medium driven out-of-equilibrium by ATP hydrolysis1. Such activity has been shown to have a spectacular impact on the mechanical and rheological properties of the cellular medium2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10, as well as on its transport properties11,12,13,14: a generic tracer particle freely diffuses as in a standard equilibrium medium, but also intermittently binds with random interaction times to motor proteins, which perform active ballistic excursions along cytoskeletal filaments. Here, we propose an analytical model of transport-limited reactions in active media, and show quantitatively how active transport can enhance reactivity for large enough tracers such as vesicles. We derive analytically the average interaction time with motor proteins that optimizes the reaction rate, and reveal remarkable universal features of the optimal configuration. We discuss why active transport may be beneficial in various biological examples: cell cytoskeleton, membranes and lamellipodia, and tubular structures such as axons1.

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Figure 1: Model of reaction kinetics in active media, and examples of low-dimensional structures in biological cells.
Figure 2: Optimization of the reaction rate.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire de Physique Théorique de la Matière Condensée, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 4 Place Jussieu, 75252 Paris cedex 05, France

    C. Loverdo, O. Bénichou, M. Moreau & R. Voituriez

Authors
  1. C. Loverdo
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  2. O. Bénichou
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  3. M. Moreau
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  4. R. Voituriez
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All authors contributed equally to this work.

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Correspondence to R. Voituriez.

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Loverdo, C., Bénichou, O., Moreau, M. et al. Enhanced reaction kinetics in biological cells. Nature Phys 4, 134–137 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys830

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