MOTION OF MOLECULAR MOTOR RATCHETED BY INTERNAL FLUCTUATIONS AND PROTEIN FRICTION

We investigate theoretically a novel mechanism of transducing chemical energy into a directed force. A hypothetical motor protein is conside red such that conformational changes induced by nucleotide binding and /or hydrolysis lead to asymmetric internal velocity fluctuations. We d emonstrate that these fluctuations result in unidirectional motion if rectified by protein friction. The motor protein force-velocity relati onship and other characteristics are computed based on analogy with kn own molecular motors. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.