Nonequilibrium statistical mechanical models for cytoskeletal assembly: towards understanding tensegrity in cells

The cytoskeleton is not an equilibrium structure. To develop theoretical tools to investigate such nonequilibrium assemblies, we study a statistical physical model of motorized spherical particles. Though simple, it captures some of the key nonequilibrium features of the cytoskeletal networks. Variational solutions of the many-body master equation for a set of motorized particles accounts for their thermally induced Brownian motion as well as for the motorized kicking of the structural elements. These approximations yield stability limits for crystalline phases and for frozen amorphous structures. The methods allow one to compute the effects of nonequilibrium behavior and adhesion (effective cross-linking) on the mechanical stability of localized phases as a function of density, adhesion strength, and temperature. We find that nonequilibrium noise does not necessarily destabilize mechanically organized structures. The nonequilibrium forces strongly modulate the phase behavior and have comparable effect as the adhesion due to cross-linking. Modeling transitions such as these allows the mechanical properties of cytoskeleton to rapidly and adaptively change. The present model provides a statistical mechanical underpinning for a tensegrity picture of the cytoskeleton.