Mechanosensitive kinetic preference of actin-binding protein to actin filament

The kinetic preference of actin-binding proteins to actin filaments is altered by external forces on the filament. Such an altered kinetic preference is largely responsible for remodeling the actin cytoskeletal structure in response to intracellular forces. During remodeling, actin-binding proteins and actin filaments interact under isothermal conditions, because the cells are homeostatic. In such a temperature homeostatic state, we can rigorously and thermodynamically link the chemical potential of actin-binding proteins to stresses on the actin filaments. From this relationship, we can construct a physical model that explains the force-dependent kinetic preference of actin-binding proteins to actin filaments. To confirm the model, we have analyzed the mechanosensitive alternation of the kinetic preference of Arp2/3 and cofilin to actin filaments. We show that this model captures the qualitative responses of these actin-binding proteins to the forces, as observed experimentally. Moreover, our theoretical results demonstrate that, depending on the structural parameters of the binding region, actin-binding proteins can show different kinetic responses even to the same mechanical signal tension, in which the double-helix nature of the actin filament also plays a critical role in a stretch-twist coupling of the filament.