LAUSR

We report on the dynamics of large complexes in the bacterial cytoplasm and an unexpected self-similarity that is observed over a wide range of time scales. The observed step-size distribution is well approximated by a Laplace distribution, independent of the lag time. We propose that this behavior is universal and demonstrate that in the strong quenched disorder limit of a class of transport problems, a limiting behavior is observed that is closely related to generalized extreme value theory (GEV). The model naturally describes many features of the observed motion including viscoelasticity and weak ergodicity breaking. We believe this mechanism could be widely applicable to describing a range of transport phenomena in cell biology and that strong quenched disorder may lead to emergent self-similarity in other biological systems by a similar mechanism.