Issue 22, 2011

Self-organized patterns of actin filaments in cell-sized confinement

Abstract

Cells use actin filaments to define and maintain their shape and to exert forces on the surrounding tissue. Accessory proteins like crosslinkers and motors organize these filaments into functional structures. However, physical effects also influence filament organization: steric interactions impose packing constraints at high filament density and spatially confine the filaments within the cell boundaries. Here we investigate the combined effects of packing constraints and spatial confinement by growing dense actin networks in cell-sized microchambers with nonadhesive walls. We show that the filaments spontaneously form dense, bundle-like structures above a threshold concentration of 1 mg ml−1, in contrast to unconfined networks, which are homogeneous and undergo a bulk isotropic-to-nematic phase transition above 5 mg ml−1. Bundling requires quasi-2D confinement in chambers with a depth comparable to the mean filament length (6 μm). The bundles curve along the walls and central bundles align along the chamber diagonal or, in elongated chambers, along the long axis. We propose that bundling is a result of the polydisperse length distribution of the filaments: filaments shorter than the chamber depth introduce an entropic depletion attraction between the longest filaments, which are confined in-plane. Bundle alignment reflects a competition between bulk liquid-crystalline ordering and alignment along the boundaries. This physical mechanism may influence intracellular organization of actin in combination with biochemical regulation and actin–membrane adhesion.

Graphical abstract: Self-organized patterns of actin filaments in cell-sized confinement

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
07 Jun 2011
Accepted
01 Sep 2011
First published
10 Oct 2011

Soft Matter, 2011,7, 10631-10641

Self-organized patterns of actin filaments in cell-sized confinement

M. Soares e Silva, J. Alvarado, J. Nguyen, N. Georgoulia, B. M. Mulder and G. H. Koenderink, Soft Matter, 2011, 7, 10631 DOI: 10.1039/C1SM06060K

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements