Cross-link governed dynamics of biopolymer networks

Abstract

Cytoskeletal networks of biopolymers are cross-linked by a variety of proteins. Experiments have shown that dynamic cross-linking with physiological linker proteins leads to complex stress relaxation and enables network flow at long times. We present a model for the mechanical properties of transient networks. By a combination of simulations and analytical techniques we show that a single microscopic timescale for cross-linker unbinding leads to a broad spectrum of macroscopic relaxation times, resulting in a weak power-law dependence of the shear modulus on frequency. By performing rheological experiments, we demonstrate that our model quantitatively describes the frequency behavior of actin network cross-linked with $\alpha$-Actinin-$4$ over four decades in frequency.

4 pages

References in corpus (2)

• Entanglement, elasticity and viscous relaxation of actin solutions
• Transient Binding and Dissipation in Semi-flexible Polymer Networks

Cited by in corpus (30)

• Modeling semiflexible polymer networks
• Biopolymers: life's mechanical scaffolds
• Determining physical properties of the cell cortex
• Collective dynamics of actomyosin cortex endow cells with intrinsic mechanosensing properties
• Origin of slow stress relaxation in the cytoskeleton
• The Poisson ratio of the cellular actin cortex is frequency-dependent
• Floppiness, cutting, and freezing: Dynamic critical scaling near isostaticity
• Cavitation controls droplet sizes in elastic media
• Crack initiation in viscoelastic materials
• Particle interactions mediated by dynamical networks: assessment of macroscopic descriptions
• Non-affine deformation of semiflexible polymer and fiber networks
• Viscoelasticity of reversibly crosslinked networks of semiflexible polymers
• Crosslinker mobility weakens transient polymer networks
• Stress relaxation through crosslink unbinding in cytoskeletal networks
• Universality in the morphology and mechanics of coarsening amyloid fibril networks
• Non-linear stress relaxation of transient-crosslinked biopolymer networks
• Tension-induced binding of semiflexible biopolymers
• Cooperative crosslink (un)binding in slowly driven bundles of semiflexible filaments
• Importance of non-affine viscoelastic response in disordered fibre networks
• Crosslinked biopolymer bundles: crosslink reversibility leads to cooperative binding/unbinding phenomena
• Active biopolymer networks generate scale-free but euclidean clusters
• On the relationship between the plateau modulus and the threshold frequency in peptide gels
• The conformation of a semiflexible filament in a quenched random potential
• Bending fluctuations in semiflexible, inextensible, slender filaments in Stokes flow: towards a spectral discretization
• Non-equilibrium fluctuations of a semi-flexible filament driven by active cross-linkers
• Mechanics and thermodynamics of contractile entropic biopolymer networks
• Viscoelastic scaling regimes for marginally-rigid fractal spring networks
• Encoding Mechano-Memories in Actin Networks
• Modelling pattern formation through differential repulsion
• Continuum model for linked fibers with alignment interactions