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@article{Grima:2010:10.1021/jp9025865,
author = {Grima, R and Yaliraki, SN and Barahona, M},
doi = {10.1021/jp9025865},
journal = {JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY B},
pages = {(5380--5385)--(5380--5385)},
title = {Crowding-Induced Anisotropic Transport Modulates Reaction Kinetics in Nanoscale Porous Media},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jp9025865},
volume = {114},
year = {2010}
}
TY - JOUR
AB - We quantify the emergence of persistent anisotropy in the diffusion of spherical tracer particles through a nanoscale porous medium composed of a uniform distribution of purely symmetric crowding particles. We focus on the interior of a biological cell as an example of such a medium and find that diffusion is highly directional for distances comparable to the size of some organelles. We use a geometrical procedure that avoids the standard orientational averaging to quantify the anisotropy of diffusive paths and show that the point source distributions are predominantly of prolate ellipsoidal shape as a result of local volume exclusion. This geometrical symmetry breaking strongly skews the distribution of kinetic rates of diffusion-limited reactions toward small values, leading to the result that, for short to intermediate times, almost 80% of the rates measured in an ensemble of heterogeneous media are smaller than the expected rate in an ideal homogeneous medium of similar excluded volume fraction. This crowding-induced modulation may have implications for our understanding and measurement of diffusion-controlled intracellular reaction kinetics and for experimental nanotechnology applications, such as nanoparticle-based bioimaging and drug delivery, where diffusion plays an important role.
AU - Grima,R
AU - Yaliraki,SN
AU - Barahona,M
DO - 10.1021/jp9025865
EP - 5385
PY - 2010///
SN - 1520-6106
SP - 5380
TI - Crowding-Induced Anisotropic Transport Modulates Reaction Kinetics in Nanoscale Porous Media
T2 - JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY B
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jp9025865
VL - 114
ER -