Mechanical response of active gels

2008/07/18 by T. B. Liverpool, M. C. Marchetti, J. -F. Joanny +2 · 4 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Materials and Mechanics #Hydrogels: synthesis, properties, applications #Micro and Nano Robotics #cond-mat.soft

paper · pdf · doi:10.1209/0295-5075/85/18007

6 pages, 3 figures

arxiv created 2008/07/18 · openalex publication_date 2009/01/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

We study a model of an active gel of cross-linked semiflexible filaments with additional active linkers such as myosin II clusters. We show that the coupling of the elasticity of the semiflexible filaments to the mechanical properties of the motors leads to contractile behavior of the gel, in qualitative agreement with experimental observations. The motors, however, soften the zero-frequency elastic constant of the gel. When the collective motor dynamics is incorporated in the model, a stiffening of the network at high frequencies is obtained. The frequency controlling the crossover between low- and high-frequency network elasticity is estimated in terms of microscopic properties of motors and filaments, and can be as low as 10 −3 Hz.

Citations

• Dynamics and Rheology of Actin Solutions

Cited by

• Substrate rigidity deforms and polarizes active gels
• Modeling semiflexible polymer networks
• Controlling cell–matrix traction forces by extracellular geometry
• Molecular motors robustly drive active gels to a critically connected state

Related

• Molecular motors stiffen non-affine semiflexible polymer networks
• Rapid local compression in active gels is caused by nonlinear network response
• Contraction of polymer gels created by the activity of molecular motors
• Force percolation of contractile active gels
• Strain Stiffening Induced by Molecular Motors in Active Crosslinked Biopolymer Networks