Berlin 2012 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 17: Posters: Physics of Cells

BP 17.28: Poster

Mittwoch, 28. März 2012, 17:30–19:30, Poster A

Spontaneous actin waves in a deformable domain — •Alexander Dreher and Karsten Kruse — Theoretische Physik, Universität des Saarlandes, Postfach 151150, 66041 Saarbrücken, Germany

The crawling of eukaryotic cells on substrates is driven by the cytoskeleton. How the cytoskeleton is organized in this process is still poorly understood. It has been suggested that spontaneous polymerization waves provide a possible answer to this question. We examine this possibility theoretically by analyzing a system of treadmilling filaments in a deformable domain. It is known that treadmilling filaments can spontaneously generate polymerization waves [1]. The domain boundary is characterized by a surface tension and a bending rigidity and evolves due to interactions with the filaments. We find spiral waves as well as states with a net directional motion of the system’s geometric center of mass. In contrast to [2], we solve the full system of dynamic equations and consider a more realistic length regulation of the filaments.

[1] Doubrovinski and Kruse, EPL 83 (2008) 18003
[2] Doubrovinski and Kruse, PRL in press