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Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 018103 (2003) [4 pages]

Lamellar Phase of Stacked Two-Dimensional Rafts of Actin Filaments

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Gerard C. L. Wong1,*, Alison Lin1, Jay X. Tang2, Youli Li1, Paul A. Janmey3, and Cyrus R. Safinya1,†
1Materials Department, Physics Department, Biomolecular Science and Engineering Program, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA
2Physics Department, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912, USA
3Institute for Medicine and Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA

Received 28 January 2003; published 2 July 2003

We examined liquid crystalline phases of the cytoskeletal polyelectrolyte filamentous (F-)actin in the presence of multivalent counterions. As a function of increasing ion concentration, the F-actin rods in either an isotropic or a nematic phase will transform into a new and unexpected lamellar phase of cross-linked rafts (LXR phase), before condensing into a bundled phase of parallel, close-packed rods. This behavior is generic for alkali earth divalent ions Mg2+, Ca2+, Sr2+, and Ba2+, and the structural transitions are achieved without any architecture-specific actin-binding linker proteins.

© 2003 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.018103
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.018103
PACS:
87.16.Ka, 61.30.St, 61.30.Eb, 61.10.Eq

*Corresponding author.

Email address: gclwong@uiuc.edu

Present address: Department of Material Science and Engineering, Department of Physics, Department of Bioengineering, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL 61801, USA.

†Corresponding author.

Email address: safinya@mrl.uscb.edu

 
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