Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 119, Issue 5, Pages -Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2115895119
Keywords
self-organization; active matter; pattern formation; nonequilibrium driving
Categories
Funding
- Brandeis NSF-Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) [DMR-2011846]
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This study investigates a reconstituted composite system composed of an active microtubule network and a passive F-actin filament network. By increasing the concentration of actin filaments, the system's dynamics transition from turbulent-like flows to bulk contractions. At intermediate concentrations, the composite separates into layered asters that coexist with a background turbulent fluid. These structures self-organize and have a defined lifetime.
We study a reconstituted composite system consisting of an active microtubule network interdigitated with a passive network of entangled F-actin filaments. Increasing the concentration of filamentous actin controls the emergent dynamics, inducing a transition from turbulent-like flows to bulk contractions. At intermediate concentrations, where the active stresses change their symmetry from anisotropic extensile to isotropic contracting, the composite separates into layered asters that coexist with the background turbulent fluid. Contracted onion-like asters have a radially extending microtubule-rich cortex that envelops alternating layers of microtubules and F-actin. These self-regulating structures undergo internal reorganization, which appears to minimize the surface area and maintain the ordered layering, even when undergoing aster merging events. Finally, the layered asters are metastable structures. Their lifetime, which ranges from minutes to hours, is encoded in the material properties of the composite. These results challenge the current models of active matter. They demonstrate selforganized dynamical states and patterns evocative of those observed in the cytoskeleton do not require precise biochemical regulation, but can arise from purely mechanical interactions of actively driven filamentous materials.
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