Modeling F-actin Disassembly by Severing and its Effect on Stress Relaxation

ORAL

Abstract

Actin filaments (F-actin), ubiquitous proteins biopolymers in cells, form networks that are crucial to cell mechanics. These biopolymers not only polymerize and depolymerize from their ends but also can be severed by actin severing proteins such as Cofilin. In this work, we develop a model for the dynamics of actin filament polymerization, depolymerization, and severing. This enables us to predict stress relaxation behavior of such complex, nonequilibrium networks. We identify various regimes with distinct length-dependent relaxation behavior, including both a regime with length-independent relaxation rate, as well as a regime with a relaxation rate that increases with filament length.

*This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (Grant PHY-1427654).

–

Presenters

  • Sadjad Arzash

    • Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Rice University

Authors

  • Sadjad Arzash

    • Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Rice University

  • Jingchen Feng

    • Center for Theoretical Biological Physics, Rice University

  • Patrick McCall

    • Department of Physics, University of Chicago

  • Margaret Gardel

    • James Franck Institute, The University of Chicago
    • Physics, University of Chicago
    • University of Chicago Medical Center
    • Department of Physics, University of Chicago
    • James Franck Institute, University of Chicago

  • Fred MacKintosh

    • Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, , Rice University
    • Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Rice University