title: Coarse-graining intermittent intracellular transport: Two- and three-dimensional models.
abstract: Viruses and other cellular cargo that lack locomotion must rely on diffusion and cellular transport systems to navigate through a biological cell. Indeed, advances in single particle tracking have revealed that viral motion alternates between (a) diffusion in the cytoplasm and (b) active transport along microtubules. This intermittency makes quantitative analysis of trajectories difficult. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to construct mathematical methods to approximate intermittent dynamics by effective stochastic differential equations. The coarse-graining method that we develop is more accurate than existing techniques and applicable to a wide range of intermittent transport models. In particular, we apply our method to two- and three-dimensional cell geometries (disk, sphere, and cylinder) and demonstrate its accuracy. In addition to these specific applications, we also explain our method in full generality for use on future intermittent models.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA.
authors.forename: Sean D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Lawley
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA.
authors.forename: Marie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tuft
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA.
authors.forename: Heather A
authors.initials: HA
authors.lastname: Brooks
mesh_terms: D001692:Biological Transport / Q000502:physiology*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003593:Cytoplasm / Q000378:metabolism; D004058:Diffusion; D008870:Microtubules / Q000378:metabolism; D008954:Models, Biological; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D009038:Motion; D013269:Stochastic Processes