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Updated: Jul 8, 2025

Using Microfluidics and Fluorescence Microscopy to Study the Assembly Dynamics of Single Actin Filaments and Bundles
Published on: May 5, 2022
Transverse Fluctuations Control the Assembly of Semiflexible Filaments
Valerio Sorichetti1,2, Martin Lenz2,3
1Institute of Science and Technology Austria, 3400 Klosterneuburg, Austria.
Abstract:
The kinetics of the assembly of semiflexible filaments through end-to-end annealing is key to the structure of the cytoskeleton, but is not understood. We analyze this problem through scaling theory and simulations, and uncover a regime where filaments' ends find each other through bending fluctuations without the need for the whole filament to diffuse. This results in a very substantial speedup of assembly in physiological regimes, and could help with understanding the dynamics of actin and intermediate filaments in biological processes such as wound healing and cell division.
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