Refine
Has Fulltext
- no (18)
Document Type
- Article (18) (remove)
Language
- English (18) (remove)
Is part of the Bibliography
- yes (18)
Keywords
- diffusion (7)
- first passage time (3)
- aspect ratio (2)
- cylindrical geometry (2)
- protein search (2)
- random diffusivity (2)
- Adam-Delbruck scenario (1)
- Biological Physics (1)
- Brownian motion (1)
- Interdisciplinary Physics (1)
- Statistical Physics (1)
- and surface diffusion (1)
- anomalous diffusion (1)
- approximate methods (1)
- bulk (1)
- dimensional reduction (1)
- exact results (1)
- extremal values (1)
- fastest first-passage time of N walkers (1)
- first passage process (1)
- first-passage (1)
- first-passage time (1)
- first-passage time distribution (1)
- first-passage times (1)
- first-reaction time (1)
- maximum and range (1)
- mean versus most probable reaction times (1)
- mixed boundary conditions (1)
- narrow escape problem (1)
- power spectral analysis (1)
- power spectral density (1)
- power spectrum (1)
- predator-prey model (1)
- probability density function (1)
- reaction cascade (1)
- shell-like geometries (1)
- single trajectories (1)
- single trajectory analysis (1)
- single-trajectory analysis (1)
Institute
- Institut für Physik und Astronomie (17)
- Extern (2)
We consider a sequential cascade of molecular first-reaction events towards a terminal reaction centre in which each reaction step is controlled by diffusive motion of the particles. The model studied here represents a typical reaction setting encountered in diverse molecular biology systems, in which, e.g. a signal transduction proceeds via a series of consecutive 'messengers': the first messenger has to find its respective immobile target site triggering a launch of the second messenger, the second messenger seeks its own target site and provokes a launch of the third messenger and so on, resembling a relay race in human competitions. For such a molecular relay race taking place in infinite one-, two- and three-dimensional systems, we find exact expressions for the probability density function of the time instant of the terminal reaction event, conditioned on preceding successful reaction events on an ordered array of target sites. The obtained expressions pertain to the most general conditions: number of intermediate stages and the corresponding diffusion coefficients, the sizes of the target sites, the distances between them, as well as their reactivities are arbitrary.