title: Self-organization of treadmilling filaments.
abstract: The cytoskeleton is an active network of polar filaments. The activity can lead to the polymerization of filaments at one end and depolymerization at the other. This phenomenon is called treadmilling and is essential for many cellular processes, in particular, the crawling of cells on a substrate. We develop a microscopic theoretical framework for describing systems of treadmilling filaments. We show that such systems can self-organize into structures observed in cell fragments, in particular, asters and moving spots.
authors.affiliation: Universität des Saarlandes, Fachrichtung Theoretische Physik, 66041 Saarbrücken, Germany and Max-Planck Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme, Nöthnitzer Str. 38, 01187 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Doubrovinski
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kruse
mesh_terms: D003598:Cytoskeletal Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000502:physiology*; D003599:Cytoskeleton / Q000737:chemistry / Q000502:physiology*; D008954:Models, Biological; D020409:Molecular Motor Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D003598:Cytoskeletal Proteins; D020409:Molecular Motor Proteins