Dresden 2003 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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DY: Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 16: Statistical physics in biological systems II

DY 16.2: Vortrag

Montag, 24. März 2003, 16:45–17:00, G\"OR/226

Continuum theory of contractile fibres — •Karsten Kruse and Frank Jülicher — Max-Planck-Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme, Nöthnitzer Str. 38, 01187 Dresden

Contractile rings as well as muscle and stress fibres are examples of quasi one-dimensional structures enabling biological cells to generate contractile forces. Contractile rings cleave, for example, cells into two daughter cells by tightening and stress fibres are used to exert forces on substrates. These structures are built from polar actin-filaments, which interact via a large number of different proteins. From a physicist’s point of view they are tension generating, dynamic systems far from equilibrium. Based on a general expression for the tension, we present a generic description of the dynamics of contractile fibres on large length scales. We show, that dynamic instabilities may lead to contraction of stress fibres as well as to waves propagating along contractile rings. We present analytic expressions for the inhomogeneous attractors. Interestingly, waves are suppressed by an isotropic arrangement of the polar filaments as is the case in muscle fibres.