Figure 3.

Protein diffusion through the lens of crowder dynamics. (A–C) Time evolution of indices of crowder molecules that are interacting with the searching protein through the nonspecific crowder interaction strengths ε = 0.02, 0.2, and 0.5, respectively, is shown. The fluctuating lines indicate the indices of the crowder molecules that are interacting with the diffuser protein at any given time. At low ε, the protein interacts with a large number of crowder molecules for a given period of time, whereas on increasing ε, the number of crowders interacting with the protein decreases, as highlighted by the black outlined region. (D) The overall variations in the number of unique interacting crowder molecules and the rate of transfer (R_t) of Sap-1 (red line) from one crowder to another as a function of ε are shown. To see this figure in color, go online.