Modeling of intracellular transport in realistic cell geometries

Abstract

The transport of molecules inside cells is a complex process, the characterization of which is important to gain full understanding of cellular processes. Understanding of intracellular transport is also important for medical applications, for example when analyzing transport of medicine inside cells. The intracellular environment is very complex, and at least the most crucial parts of this complexity must be accounted for to solve transport problems in cells. In this thesis the results of studies in modeling intracellular transport are presented. The aim of the work was to model intracellular transport of proteins and viral capsids in realistic cell environments. To this end, microscopic methods were used to image cellular structures, which were then digitally reconstructed and used as an environment for modeling particle transport in numerical simulations.