Polymer translocation in crowded environments

Abstract

We study the effect of the crowded environments on the translocation of a polymer through a pore in a membrane. By systematically treating the entropic penalty due to crowding, we show that the translocation dynamics are significantly altered, leading to novel scaling behaviors of the translocation time. We also observe new and qualitatively different translocation regimes depending upon the extent of crowding, transmembrane chemical potential asymmetry, and polymer length.