Biomechanics

Some mathematical models for flagellar activation mechanisms

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Authors: François Alouges, Irene Anello, Antonio Desimone, Aline Lefebvre-Lepot, Jessie Levillain

This paper focuses on studying a model for molecular motors responsible for the bending of the axoneme in the flagella of microorganisms. The model is a coupled system of partial differential equations inspired by Jülicher et al. or Camalet, incorporating two rows of molecular motors between microtubules filaments. Existence and uniqueness of a solution is proved, together with the presence of a supercritical Hopf bifurcation. Additionally, numerical simulations are provided to illustrate the theoretical results. A brief study on the generalization to N-rows is also included.