A strong nonequilibrium bound for sorting of cross-linkers on growing biopolymers

Yuqing Qiu, Michael Nguyen, Glen M. Hocky, Aaron R. Dinner, Suriyanarayanan Vaikuntanathan

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Understanding the role of nonequilibrium driving in self-organization is crucial for developing a predictive description of biological systems, yet it is impeded by their complexity. The actin cytoskeleton serves as a paradigm for how equilibrium and nonequilibrium forces combine to give rise to self-organization. Motivated by recent experiments that show that actin filament growth rates can tune the morphology of a growing actin bundle cross-linked by two competing types of actin-binding proteins [S. L. Freedman et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 116, 16192-16197 (2019)], we construct a minimal model for such a system and show that the dynamics of a growing actin bundle are subject to a set of thermodynamic constraints that relate its nonequilibrium driving, morphology, and molecular fluxes. The thermodynamic constraints reveal the importance of correlations between these molecular fluxes and offer a route to estimating microscopic driving forces from microscopy experiments.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article numbere2102881118
JournalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Volume118
Issue number38
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 21 2021

Keywords

  • Actin bundling
  • Fluctuation-response relations
  • Growth
  • Microscopic nonequilibrium driving
  • Stochastic thermodynamics

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General

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