Issue 19, 2022

Crosslinking and depletion determine spatial instabilities in cytoskeletal active matter

Abstract

Active gels made of cytoskeletal proteins are valuable materials with attractive non-equilibrium properties such as spatial self-organization and self-propulsion. At least four typical routes to spatial patterning have been reported to date in different types of cytoskeletal active gels: bending and buckling instabilities in extensile systems, and global and local contraction instabilities in contractile gels. Here we report the observation of these four instabilities in a single type of active gel and we show that they are controlled by two parameters: the concentrations of ATP and depletion agent. We demonstrate that as the ATP concentration decreases, the concentration of passive motors increases until the gel undergoes a gelation transition. At this point, buckling is selected against bending, while global contraction is favored over local ones. Our observations are coherent with a hydrodynamic model of a viscoelastic active gel where the filaments are crosslinked with a characteristic time that diverges as the ATP concentration decreases. Our work thus provides a unified view of spatial instabilities in cytoskeletal active matter.

Graphical abstract: Crosslinking and depletion determine spatial instabilities in cytoskeletal active matter

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
27 Phe 2022
Accepted
21 Mme 2022
First published
27 Mme 2022

Soft Matter, 2022,18, 3793-3800

Crosslinking and depletion determine spatial instabilities in cytoskeletal active matter

G. Sarfati, A. Maitra, R. Voituriez, J. Galas and A. Estevez-Torres, Soft Matter, 2022, 18, 3793 DOI: 10.1039/D2SM00130F

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