Tunable dynamics of microtubule based active isotropic gels

Abstract

We investigate the dynamics of an active gel of bundled microtubules that is driven by clusters of kinesin molecular motors. Upon the addition of ATP, the coordinated action of thousands of molecular motors drives the gel to a highly dynamical turbulent-like state that persists for hours and is only limited by the stability of constituent proteins and the availability of the chemical fuel. We characterize how enhanced transport and emergent macroscopic flows of active gels depend on relevant molecular parameters, including ATP, kinesin motor, and depletant concentrations, microtubule volume fraction, as well as the stoichiometry of the constituent motor clusters. Our results show that the dynamical and structural properties of microtubule based active gels are highly tunable. They also indicate existence of an optimal concentration of molecular motors that maximize far-from-equilibrium activity of active isotropic MT gels.

19 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Spontaneous motion in hierarchically assembled active matter
• Fluctuations and Rheology in Active Bacterial Suspensions

Cited by in corpus (5)

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• Fractal generation in a two-dimensional active-nematic fluid