TY  - THES
T1  - Self-organized cyclic patterns in muscles and microscopic swimming
A1  - Günther,Stefan
Y1  - 2010/12/28
N2  - Living cells are self-sustained units of organisms. Within cells the complex interplay of a high amount of proteins and other molecules relies on information that is encoded in the dna. The self-organisation of cellular constituents might play an important role in cellular activity. There is evidence for self-organization in the cytoskeleton of cells where small numbers of interacting proteins create patterns of a higher order. The cytoskeleton of muscles has been shown to exhibit cyclic behaviour and wave patterns in absence of regulatory mechanisms. This thesis provides evidence that the experimental results can be accounted for by the self-organization of cytoskeletal filaments and motor proteins. A microscopic model exposes that the dynamics is excitable. Continuous descriptions of muscles reveal a non-hydrodynamic mode that accounts for wave generation. The phenomenological coefficients can directly be related to microscopic parameters. For this study, the principles that underly spontaneous muscle oscillations are used in a conceptual design of a simple self-driven swimmer at low Reynolds number. The swimmer's motion can self-organize into directed movement by dynamically breaking the swimmer's symmetries.
KW  - Reynolds-Zahl
KW  - Muskel
KW  - Zelle
KW  - Zellskelett
CY  - Saarbrücken
PB  - Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek
AD  - Postfach 151141, 66041 Saarbrücken
UR  - http://scidok.sulb.uni-saarland.de/volltexte/2010/2630
ER  -