ANALYSIS OF THE MODELS FOR CYTOSKELETAL RHEOLOGY

摘要: Spanning a period of a few decades, there have been several models proposed for the elasticity or viscoelasticity of the cytoskeleton. In addition, there have been numerous experiments using cells and reconstituted actin gels, with or without cross-linkers, designed to characterize the rheology of actin networks under various conditions. Still, debates continue regarding the contributions of various potential mechanisms (filament bending stiffness, thermal fluctuations, filament extensional stiffness, cross-linker stiffness, cross-link binding and unbinding) to cell viscoelasticity, and which model (semiflexible polymer network, tensegrity network, cellular solids) is best able to capture the measured characteristics. Here, we use a computational model of a thermally-active cross-linked network to probe the important factors and discuss these in the context of the different models. We conclude that thermal fluctuations are not …