Regensburg 2025 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 11: Cytoskeleton

BP 11.4: Vortrag

Dienstag, 18. März 2025, 10:30–10:45, H44

Interactions between single actin and vimentin filaments — •Pallavi Kumari and Sarah Köster — Institute for X-Ray Physics, University of Göttingen, Germany

The cytoskeleton plays a crucial role in maintaining cellular structure, mechanics, and function. Recent advances suggest that the diverse tasks of the eukaryotic cytoskeleton depend on the interactions between its filamentous components - microtubules, actin filaments, and intermediate filaments. Despite a growing number of studies to better understand these interactions, it remains unclear whether actin and intermediate filaments interact directly without an auxiliary protein. Previous in vitro studies on reconstituted mixed filament networks have reported contradictory results. To clearly resolve this contradiction, it is essential to further simplify the system down to the single filament level. Here, we present a study on the direct interactions between actin filaments and vimentin intermediate filaments at the single filament level, examining the effects of different ions at varying concentrations on the interaction force. We employ quadruple optical tweezers combined with confocal microscopy and microfluidics to precisely control the conditions for the interaction of the two reconstituted protein filaments, visualize the interactions, and measure the forces involved. Our research provides direct indications of interactions between actin and vimentin filaments. Our findings will provide important insight that will help to unravel the interplay of cytoskeletal filaments at the network level.

Keywords: vimentin filaments; actin filaments; single filaments; cytoskeleton; optical tweezers