Models of Heterogenous Actin Filaments

Actin Filaments

Models for the Length Distributions of Actin Filaments :

1 ABSTRACT In a previous paper, we studied elementary models for polymerization, depolymerization, and fragmentation of actin laments (Edelstein-Keshet and Ermentrout, 1997). When these processes act together, more complicated dynamics occur. We concentrate on a particular case study, using the actin-fragmenting protein gelsolin. A set of biological parameter values (drawn from the experimental...

Dynamic stabilization of actin filaments.

We report here that actin filaments in vitro exist in two populations with significantly different shrinkage rates. Newly polymerized filaments shrink rapidly, primarily from barbed ends, at 1.8/s, but as they age they switch to a stable state that shrinks slowly, primarily from pointed ends, at approximately 0.1/s. This dynamic filament stabilization runs opposite to the classical prediction t...

The Organization of Actin Filaments

Within each tapering stereocilium of the cochlea of the alligator lizard is a bundle of actin filaments with >3,000 filaments near the tip and only 18-29 filaments at the base where the bundle enters into the cuticular plate; there the filaments splay out as if on the surface of a cone, forming the rootlet. Decoration of the hair cells with subfragment 1 of myosin reveals that all the filaments...

Actin Filaments as Tension Sensors

The field of mechanobiology has witnessed an explosive growth over the past several years as interest has greatly increased in understanding how mechanical forces are transduced by cells and how cells migrate, adhere and generate traction. Actin, a highly abundant and anomalously conserved protein, plays a large role in forming the dynamic cytoskeleton that is so essential for cell form, motili...