Institute for Medicine and Engineering Papers
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of this Version
July 2003
Abstract
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.
Date Posted: 13 August 2007
This document has been peer reviewed.
Comments
Reprinted from Physical Review Letters, Volume 91, Number 1, July 2003, 4 pages. Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.018103