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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 8: Posters: Active cell and tissue mechanics
BP 8.9: Poster
Monday, March 31, 2014, 17:30–19:30, P3
Coordinated actomyosin kinetics in generating pulsatory dynamics — •Masatoshi Nishikawa1,2,3, Sundar Naganathan1,2,3, Guillaume Salbreux1, and Stephan Grill1,2,3 — 1Max Planck Institute for Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany — 2Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden, Germany — 3BIOTEC, Dresden, Germany
The cell cortex, which consists of cross-linked actin filaments and non-muscle myosin and is located beneath the cell membrane, is responsible for driving cell mechanical events. The cortex has been shown to be inherently unstable, displaying pulsatory dynamics characterized by transient accumulations of myosin at µ m length scales. We sought to identify the regulatory mechanism of coordinated actomyosin kinetics to generate pulsatory dynamics, and that ensures the robust cellular processes. To this end we develop a new method to characterize, in the comoving frame of reference, turnover timescales of cortical components as a function of the concentration of actin and myosin, which we term Comoving Mass Balance Imaging (CoMBI). We applied this method to the cortical flow in the one-cell stage C. elegance embryo, and succeeded to extract the actomyosin kinetics in spatially and temporally resolved manner. This method provides us with a detailed description of actomyosin mechanochemical dynamics, relevant for the cellular scale.