Publications [#347939] of Glenn S. Edwards

Papers Submitted
  1. with Shape changes of cytoskeletal actin filaments, Biophysical Journal (2019) .

    Abstract:
    Cytoskeletal actin filaments are constrained by dynamic crosslinks, actively driven by myosin mini-filaments, stressed by their surrounding cytoskeleton, and their shape changes occur in a viscoelastic cytosol. The beam equation has been applied to cytoskeletal actin filaments to predict their shape changes. The shape change simply scales with the magnitude of the force applied by actomyosin cross-bridges. In contrast, there are qualitatively distinct classes of shape changes depending on the length of the actin filaments and the magnitude of cytoskeletal stress. These modelling results were then connected to previous experimental observations. Consequently, order-of-magnitude estimates were carried out both for Stokes’ drag coefficient, the viscosity, and the Reynolds Number for the cytosol and also for tissue-scale forces and stresses during morphogenesis. Knowledge of the diversity of shape changes for cytoskeletal actin filaments advances the mechanistic understanding of how molecular piconewton forces scale into nanonewton cellular and tissue forces.

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