2007/03/15 by Ajay Gopinathan, Kun-Chun Lee, J. M. Schwarz +1 · 1 citation
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #3D Printing in Biomedical Research #Biocrusts and Microbial Ecology #Cellular Mechanics and Interactions #cond-mat.soft #q-bio.CB
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.99.058103
4 pages, 2 figures
arxiv created 2007/03/15 · openalex publication_date 2007/08/02 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Branched actin networks at the leading edge of a crawling cell evolve via protein-regulated processes such as polymerization, depolymerization, capping, branching, and severing. A formulation of these processes is presented and analyzed to study steady-state network morphology. In bulk, we identify several scaling regimes in severing and branching protein concentrations and find that the coupling between severing and branching is optimally exploited for conditions in vivo. Near the leading edge, we find qualitative agreement with the in vivo morphology.