Issue 19, 2022

Modeling the dynamic growth and branching of actin filaments

Abstract

As an essential component of the cytoskeleton, actin filaments play a key role in a variety of cellular physiological activities. To better understand the function of actin filaments, which are a special kind of polymer chain, researchers have started to focus on the Brownian dynamics of polymers. Currently, to study the dynamics of polymers, classical explicit bead–spring models and finite-element methods (FEMs) have both been broadly used. However, compared to bead–spring models, FEMs can address the mechanical properties of actin filaments and actin networks with more detail and better accuracy. However, current FEMs do not consider the dynamic assembly of actin into an actin filament network. Here, we extend the traditional FEM and present a new framework of the FEM based on the co-rotational grid method, which allows us to simulate the dynamic growth and branching of actin filaments. Several examples are studied. The proposed numerical model is capable of capturing the dynamic assembly of actin filaments.

Graphical abstract: Modeling the dynamic growth and branching of actin filaments

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
02 Mar 2022
Accepted
06 Apr 2022
First published
07 Apr 2022

Soft Matter, 2022,18, 3649-3659

Modeling the dynamic growth and branching of actin filaments

W. Xu, X. Liu and X. Liu, Soft Matter, 2022, 18, 3649 DOI: 10.1039/D2SM00283C

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