title: Sufficient conditions for the additivity of stall forces generated by multiple filaments or motors.
abstract: Molecular motors and cytoskeletal filaments work collectively most of the time under opposing forces. This opposing force may be due to cargo carried by motors or resistance coming from the cell membrane pressing against the cytoskeletal filaments. Some recent studies have shown that the collective maximum force (stall force) generated by multiple cytoskeletal filaments or molecular motors may not always be just a simple sum of the stall forces of the individual filaments or motors. To understand this excess or deficit in the collective force, we study a broad class of models of both cytoskeletal filaments and molecular motors. We argue that the stall force generated by a group of filaments or motors is additive, that is, the stall force of N number of filaments (motors) is N times the stall force of one filament (motor), when the system is reversible at stall. Conversely, we show that this additive property typically does not hold true when the system is irreversible at stall. We thus present a novel and unified understanding of the existing models exhibiting such non-addivity, and generalise our arguments by developing new models that demonstrate this phenomena. We also propose a quantity similar to thermodynamic efficiency to easily predict this deviation from stall-force additivity for filament and motor collectives.
authors.affiliation: UM-DAE Center for Excellence in Basic Sciences, University of Mumbai, Vidhyanagari Campus, Mumbai-400098, India.
authors.forename: Tripti
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Bameta
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Powai, Mumbai-400 076, India.
authors.forename: Dipjyoti
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Das
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Powai, Mumbai-400 076, India.
authors.forename: Dibyendu
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Das
authors.affiliation: Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai-400 076, India.
authors.forename: Ranjith
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Padinhateeri
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Powai, Mumbai-400 076, India.
authors.forename: Mandar M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Inamdar
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003599:Cytoskeleton / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D006868:Hydrolysis; D008954:Models, Biological; D008958:Models, Molecular; D020409:Molecular Motor Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D013816:Thermodynamics
chemical_list: D020409:Molecular Motor Proteins