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Updated: Aug 16, 2026

Directly Measuring Forces Within Reconstituted Active Microtubule Bundles
Published on: May 10, 2022
Macroscopic equations for pattern formation in mixtures of microtubules and molecular motors
1Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
Abstract:
Inspired by patterns observed in mixtures of microtubules and molecular motors, we propose continuum equations for the evolution of motor density and microtubule orientation. The chief ingredients are the transport of motors along tubules, and the alignment of tubules in the process. The macroscopic equations lead to aster and vortex patterns in qualitative agreement with experiments. While the early stages of evolution of tubules are similar to coarsening of spins following a quench, the rearrangement of motors leads to arrested coarsening at low densities. Even in one dimension, the equations exhibit a variety of interesting behaviors, such as symmetry breaking, moving fronts, and motor localization.
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