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Structural organization and energy storage in crosslinked actin-assemblies

View ORCID ProfileRui Ma, View ORCID ProfileJulien Berro
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/237412
Rui Ma
1Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
2Nanobiology Institute, Yale University, West Haven, CT 06516, USA
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Julien Berro
1Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
2Nanobiology Institute, Yale University, West Haven, CT 06516, USA
3Department of Cell Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
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Abstract

During clathrin-mediated endocytosis in yeast cells, short actin filaments (< 200nm) and crosslinking protein fimbrin assemble to drive the internalization of the plasma membrane. However, the organization of the actin meshwork during endocytosis remains largely unknown. In addition, only a small fraction of the force necessary to elongate and pinch off vesicles can be accounted for by actin polymerization alone. In this paper, we used mathematical modeling to study the self-organization of rigid actin filaments in the presence of elastic crosslinkers in conditions relevant to endocytosis. We found that actin filaments condense into either a disordered meshwork or an ordered bundle depending on filament length and the mechanical and kinetical properties of the crosslinkers. Our simulations also demonstrated that these nanometer-scale actin structures can store a large amount of elastic energy within the crosslinkers (up to 10kBT per crosslinker). This conversion of binding energy into elastic energy is the consequence of geometric constraints created by the helical pitch of the actin filaments, which results in frustrated configurations of crosslinkers attached to filaments. We propose that this stored elastic energy can be used at a later time in the endocytic process. As a proof of principle, we presented a simple mechanism for sustained torque production by ordered detachment of crosslinkers from a pair of parallel filaments.

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Posted December 20, 2017.
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Structural organization and energy storage in crosslinked actin-assemblies
Rui Ma, Julien Berro
bioRxiv 237412; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/237412
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Structural organization and energy storage in crosslinked actin-assemblies
Rui Ma, Julien Berro
bioRxiv 237412; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/237412

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