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Updated: May 21, 2026

Single-Molecule Diffusion and Assembly on Polymer-Crowded Lipid Membranes
Published on: July 19, 2022
Obstructed diffusion propagator analysis for single-particle tracking
Aubrey V Weigel1, Shankarachary Ragi, Michael L Reid
1School of Biomedical Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523, USA.
Abstract:
We describe a method for the analysis of the distribution of displacements, i.e., the propagators, of single-particle tracking measurements for the case of obstructed subdiffusion in two-dimensional membranes. The propagator for the percolation cluster is compared with a two-component mobility model against Monte Carlo simulations. To account for diffusion in the presence of obstacle concentrations below the percolation threshold, a propagator that includes the transient motion in finite percolation clusters and hopping between obstacle-induced compartments is derived. Finally, these models are shown to be effective in the analysis of Kv2.1 channel diffusive measurements in the membrane of living mammalian cells.
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