Crowded surfaces change annealing dynamics of actin filaments

Changes in cell shape that occur in many cellular processes are thought to arise from polymerization of actin filaments near the cell membrane. End-to-end annealing of actin filaments is believed to play only a minor role in this process, as annealing in solution was shown to be a slow process, which is not typical for a bimolecular reaction, its rate constant decreasing over time, being inversely proportional to the filament length. Furthermore, in vitro studies on f-actin solutions were found to display an exponential steady-state length distribution. In the cell, many physiologically important parameters, such as mechanical strength or viscoelastic response are a direct function of the physical properties of the underlying actin cytoskeleton, such as actin filament length distribution and dynamics. How the underlying physical parameters of the actin cytoskeleton may be influenced by the cell surface or molecular crowding remains poorly understood. Using total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy we reinvestigated actin end-to-end annealing in vitro in a more realistic environment. We studied the process near a hydrophilic surface together with crowding agents, in order to mimic the physiological media near the cell membrane, which has substantial amounts of macromolecules present. We find that actin end-to-end annealing changes in three ways near a crowded hydrophilic surface as compared to solution. First the annealing rate becomes a factor of 20 faster than in solution. Second the rate of annealing becomes typical of a bimolecular reaction, shows no length dependence and is basically just a function of the square of the concentration of ends. Lastly the length distribution is Gaussian throughout the entire annealing process. This implicates that dynamic rearrangement of actin filaments by annealing near the leading edge of the cell, could change physical parameters like the mechanical response and contribute significantly to cell motility.