A1.2025: Microtubule mechanics and turnover under cell-like physical constraints
Collaborating PIs: Timo Betz, Stefan Klumpp, Sarah Köster, Peter Lénárt, Peter Sollich, Claudia Steinem
Overarching research question: How does molecular damage and self-repair of microtubules influence cytoskeletal mechanical stress?
The mechanochemical basis of microtubule growth and force generation, which is essential for the normal function and division of eukaryotic cells, remains elusive and controversial. In addition, microtubules bend and break in cells due to physical constraints, thus changing their mechanical properties locally and undergoing complex yet largely unexplained collective phenomena, e.g. softening and self-repair. By employing fully atomistic Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations, we investigate the mechanical and dynamical properties of complete microtubule lattices subject to external forces due to global or local mechanical deformations. A coarse-grained microtubule model will serve to connect the atomistic length scales of local molecular damages and healing process to the mesoscale dynamics and forces of the cytoplasm.
Core field: theoretical physics/mathematics
PhD training objectives: principles of computational physics; computational simulation methods; biomolecular kinetics and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics; collective phenomena; numerical mathematics