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Updated: Aug 17, 2026

Reconstitution of Membrane-Tethered Minimal Actin Cortices on Supported Lipid Bilayers
Published on: July 12, 2022
Skin layer at the actin-gel surface: quenched protein membranes form flat, crumpled, and tubular morphologies
1Materials & Physics Department, Biomolecular Science and Engineering Program, University of California, Santa Barbara California 93106, USA.
Abstract:
We report the discovery of a hierarchically structured skin layer formed at the surface of an isotropic gel of filamentous actin bundles at high molar ratios of alpha-actinin, an actin cross-linker, to globular actin. Confocal microscopy has elucidated the full, micron scale 3D structure. The protein skin layer, composed of a directed network of bundles, exhibits flat, crumpled, tubelike and pleated multitubular morphologies, resulting from stresses due to the underlying gel. The skin layer, which readily detaches, constitutes a model anisotropic solid membrane with stress-induced, quenched disorder.
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