Lamellar Phase of Stacked Two-Dimensional Rafts of Actin Filaments

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Wong, Gerard C.L.
Lin, Alison
Tang, Jay X.
Li, Youli
Safinya, Cyrus R
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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 crosslinked 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.

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2003-07-04
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Reprinted from Physical Review Letters, Volume 91, Number 1, July 2003, 4 pages. Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.018103
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