Figure 1.

Illustration of the model. Molecular motors carry the building blocks for flagellar assembly from the base to the tip and travel with a constant speed v. When reaching the tip, the motors unload the cargo, and the flagellum elongates by a unit of δ. The motors dwell at the tip and switch to a diffusive state with a transition rate k_t. The motors diffuse back to the base with a diffusion coefficient D and accumulate at the base, waiting for injection into the flagellum with a transition rate k_i. The flagellum has a spontaneous disassembly rate of r_d. The total number of molecular motors is assumed to be constant. To see this figure in color, go online.