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Filopodia are bundles of actin filaments that extend out ahead of the leading edge of a crawling cell to probe its upcoming environment. {it In vitro} experiments [D. Vignjevic {it et al.}, J. Cell Biol. {bf 160}, 951 (2003)] have determined the minimal ingredients required for the formation of filopodia from the dendritic-like morphology of the leading edge. We model these experiments using kinetic aggregation equations for the density of growing bundle tips. In mean field, we determine the bundle size distribution to be broad for bundle sizes smaller than a characteristic bundle size above which the distribution decays exponentially. Two-dimensional simulations incorporating both bundling and cross-linking measure a bundle size distribution that agrees qualitatively with mean field. The simulations also demonstrate a nonmonotonicity in the radial extent of the dendritic region as a function of capping protein concentration, as was observed in experiments, due to the interplay between percolation and the ratcheting of growing filaments off a spherical obstacle.
We study theoretically the effects of confinement on active polar gels such as the actin network of eukaryotic cells. Using generalized hydrodynamics equations derived for active gels, we predict, in the case of quasi one-dimensional geometry, a spon
Actin networks in certain single-celled organisms exhibit a complex pattern-forming dynamics that starts with the appearance of static spots of actin on the cell cortex. Spots soon become mobile, executing persistent random walks, and eventually give
Due to the stochastic nature of biochemical processes, the copy number of any given type of molecule inside a living cell often exhibits large temporal fluctuations. Here, we develop analytic methods to investigate how the noise arising from a bursti
In this article, we study the kinetics of reversible ligand binding to receptors on a spherical cell surface using a self-consistent stochastic theory. Binding, dissociation, diffusion and rebinding of ligands are incorporated into the theory in a sy
One of the causes of high fidelity of copying in biological systems is kinetic discrimination. In this mechanism larger dissipation and copying velocity result in improved copying accuracy. We consider a model of a polymerase which simultaneously cop