PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Sven K. Vogel AU - Christian Wölfer AU - Diego A. Ramirez-Diaz AU - Robert J. Flassig AU - Kai Sundmacher AU - Petra Schwille TI - Emergence of Directional Actomyosin Flows from Active Matter Vibrations AID - 10.1101/394700 DP - 2019 Jan 01 TA - bioRxiv PG - 394700 4099 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/02/09/394700.short 4100 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/02/09/394700.full AB - Cortical actomyosin flows play pivotal roles in cell motility, cell division and animal morphogenesis. According to many model systems, myosin motor induced local contractions are key for generating cortical flows. However, the original mechanism how large-scale directed flows emerge from local motor activity in an apparently isotropic cortex is unknown. We reconstituted and confined minimal actomyosin cortices to the interfaces of emulsion droplets. The presence of ATP leads to myosin-induced cortical contractions that self-organize into directed flow-like actomyosin motions. By combining our experiments with theory, we found that the large-scale directional motion of actomyosin clusters emerges from individual asymmetric cluster vibrations, caused by intrinsic non-isotropic ATP consumption, in conjunction with spherical confinement. By tracking individual actomyosin clusters, we identified fingerprints of vibrational states as the basis of directed motions. These vibrations may represent a generic key driver of directed actomyosin flows under spatial confinement in vitro and in living systems.