Single-Molecule Tracking in Live Cell by Simulations: Thermodynamic Jitter

What is it about?

https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202405.0395/v2 For the first time, we simulated single molecule tracks of individual molecules in live cell, e.g. cytoplasm. The biological cell, cytoplasm, is represented by the generator g24 from ref. [15], which simulates the fractal structure in a biological cell, e.g. in its cytoplasm. All details and description of these methods are given in the ref. [15]. A limited continuous time random walk (LCTRW) is then performed on this structure (generalized 3D Sierpinski carpet) to assess the statistical properties of the diffusion process. Before showing the simulation results, we make sure that only one and the same molecule that is an individual molecule can be investigated by experiments including simulations. This work is significant and the findings are placed in the context of existing work.

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Why is it important?

https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202405.0395/v2 Abstract: Experiments to measure a single molecule/particle, i.e. an individual molecule/particle, at room temperature or under physiological conditions without immobilization, for example on a surface, or without significant hydrodynamic flow have so far failed. This failure has given impetus to the underlying theory of Brownian molecular motion towards its stochastics due to diffusion. Quantifying the thermodynamic jitter of molecules/particles inspires many and forms the theoretical basis of single-molecule/single-particle biophysics and biochemistry. For the first time, our simulation results for a live cell (cytoplasm) show that the tracks of individual single molecules are localized in Brownian motion, while there is fanning out in fractal diffusion (anomalous diffusion).

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