Moving faster in a crowd

Cell particles move more quickly through a crowded cellular environment when the crowding molecules are non-uniformly distributed. New research also shows that particle transport in crowded cells can actually be faster than movement in a non-crowded environment as long as the particles are moving from densely crowded areas to less crowded areas. Understanding the rate at which particles move in these environments can help researchers to better understand cellular processes that require multiple molecules to "find" each other in the crowded environment of the cell. A paper describing the research, by a team of Penn State scientists, appears online in the journal ACS Nano.