Spatiotemporal Patterns of Noise-Driven Confined Actin Waves in Living Cells

Phys Rev Lett. 2017 Jan 27;118(4):048102. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.048102. Epub 2017 Jan 27.

Abstract

Cells utilize waves of polymerizing actin to reshape their morphologies, which is central to physiological and pathological processes alike. Here, we force dorsal actin waves to propagate on one-dimensional domains with periodic boundary conditions, which results in striking spatiotemporal patterns with a clear signature of noise-driven dynamics. We show that these patterns can be very closely reproduced with a noise-driven active medium at coherence resonance.

MeSH terms

  • Actins / chemistry*
  • Cell Membrane
  • Electromagnetic Phenomena
  • Models, Biological
  • Protein Multimerization

Substances

  • Actins