Dresden 2009 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 9: Actin Dynamics

BP 9.9: Talk

Tuesday, March 24, 2009, 13:00–13:15, ZEU 260

Stress generation and polarity sorting in active filament bundles attached to a membrane — •Marc Neef and Karsten Kruse — Theoretische Physik, Universität des Saarlandes, 66041 Saarbrücken

During the late states of cell division, animal cells are cleaved into two by a contractile ring. It consists of a bundle of actin filaments and molecular motors, where the actin filaments are connected to the plasma membrane. We study the effects of this coupling between filaments and the membrane on the dynamics of the bundle. In our model, we assume that filaments are anchored to the membrane by proteins that are bound to the filament ends. We treat the membrane as a thin film of a viscous fluid and account for hydrodynamic interactions between the anchor proteins. These are included by application of the "method of reflections". Using a stochastic as well as a mean field version of this model, we calculate the stress in the membrane due to interactions between antiparallel filaments. Furthermore, we find polarity sorting within the bundle for sufficiently large interaction strengths. Both effects exist only in the presence of hydrodynamic interactions.