Deciphering the Dynamic Control of Self-organized Actomyosin Contractility and Mechanosensitivity in the Actin Cytoskeleton

All eukaryotic cells contain a cytoskeleton. A major component of the cytoskeleton is actin, a semi-flexible biopolymer that can assemble and disassemble. Actin collaborates with various molecular motors and accessory proteins to regulate the mechanical properties of cells and contribute to diverse cell functions, such as structural integrity, motility, and signaling.

We aim to derive a predictive framework to elucidate how the organization and activity of the cytoskeleton arise from the mechanics, dynamics, and cooperative interactions of individual components.

Although direct in vivo measurement and imaging and in vitro reconstruction of cytoskeletal networks provide many extraordinary insights into the physical control principles of their adaptive behavior, new non-equilibrium theoretical frameworks, together with computational methods including advanced machine learning techniques, are required to interpret the measurements and simulations and integrate the findings from different approaches to build predictive theoretical descriptions.