Related papers: Growth Velocities of Branched Actin Networks
Eukaryotic cells and intracellular pathogens such as bacteria or viruses utilize the actin polymerization machinery to propel themselves forward. Thereby, the onset of motion and choice of direction may be the result of a spontaneous…
The cytoskeleton protein actin assembles into large bundles when supporting stresses in the cell, but grows into a fine branched network to induce cell motion. Such self-organization processes are studied in artificial networks of…
In many real world networks, the number of links increases nonlinearly with the number of nodes. Models of such accelerated growth have been considered earlier with deterministic and stochastic number of links. Here we consider stochastic…
Actin is one of the most studied cytoskeleton proteins showing a very rich span of structures. It can self-assemble actively into dynamical structures that govern the mechanical properties of the cell, its motility and its division.…
In various cellular processes, biofilaments like F-actin and F-tubulin are able to exploit chemical energy associated to polymerization to perform mechanical work against an external load. The force-velocity relationship quantitatively…
Actin is a key component of the cytoskeleton, which plays central roles in cell motility, division, growth, and tensile strength. To enable this wide range of transient mechanical processes and properties, networks of actin filaments…
Many models have been developed to study the role of branching actin networks in motility. One important component of those models is the distribution of filament orientations relative to the cell membrane. Two mean-field models previously…
A model for the dynamics of actin filament ends along the leading edge of the lamellipodium is analyzed. It contains accounts of nucleation by branching, of deactivation by capping, and of lateral flow along the leading edge by…
We establish the Statistical Mechanics framework for a bundle of Nf living and uncrosslinked actin filaments in a supercritical solution of free monomers pressing against a mobile wall. The filaments are anchored normally to a fixed planar…
Cellular actin structures are continuously turned over while keeping similar sizes. Since they all compete for a shared pool of actin monomers, the question arises how they can coexist in these dynamic steady states. Recently, the…
We analyze a model of interacting agents (e.g. prebiotic chemical species) which are represended by nodes of a network, whereas their interactions are mapped onto directed links between these nodes. On a fast time scale, each agent follows…
We use optical tweezers microrheology and fluorescence microscopy to apply nonlinear microscale strains to entangled and crosslinked actin networks, and measure the resulting stress and actin filament deformations. We couple nonlinear…
We optically drive a microsphere at constant speed through entangled actin networks of 0.2 - 1.4 mg/ml at rates faster than the critical rate controlling the onset of a nonlinear response. By measuring the resistive force exerted on the…
Many growing networks possess accelerating statistics where the number of links added with each new node is an increasing function of network size so the total number of links increases faster than linearly with network size. In particular,…
Recent experimental and theoretical investigations of crystal growth from solution in the vicinity of an impermeable wall have shown that: (i) growth can be maintained within the contact region when a liquid film is present between the…
We present a statistical mechanical study of stiff polymers, motivated by experiments on actin filaments and the considerable current interest in polymer networks. We obtain simple, approximate analytical forms for the force-extension…
Three models of growing random networks with fitness dependent growth rates are analysed using the rate equations for the distribution of their connectivities. In the first model (A), a network is built by connecting incoming nodes to nodes…
We propose a novel model-selection method for dynamic networks. Our approach involves training a classifier on a large body of synthetic network data. The data is generated by simulating nine state-of-the-art random graph models for dynamic…
Cells sense the geometry and stiffness of their adhesive environment by active contractility. For strong adhesion to flat substrates, two-dimensional contractile network models can be used to understand how force is distributed throughout…
Mechanochemical simulations of actomyosin networks are traditionally based on one-dimensional models of actin filaments having zero width. Here, and in the follow up paper, approaches are presented for more efficient modelling which…