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Islands of conformational stability for Filopodia
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Daniels, D. Robert and Turner, Matthew S. (2013) Islands of conformational stability for Filopodia. PLoS One, Volume 8 (Number 3). Article no. e59010. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0059010
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0059010
Abstract
Filopodia are long, thin protrusions formed when bundles of fibers grow outwardly from a cell surface while remaining closed in a membrane tube. We study the subtle issue of the mechanical stability of such filopodia and how this depends on the deformation of the membrane that arises when the fiber bundle adopts a helical configuration. We calculate the ground state conformation of such filopodia, taking into account the steric interaction between the membrane and the enclosed semiflexible fiber bundle. For typical filopodia we find that a minimum number of fibers is required for filopodium stability. Our calculation elucidates how experimentally observed filopodia can obviate the classical Euler buckling condition and remain stable up to several tens of . We briefly discuss how experimental observation of the results obtained in this work for the helical-like deformations of enclosing membrane tubes in filopodia could possibly be observed in the acrosomal reactions of the sea cucumber Thyone, and the horseshoe crab Limulus. Any realistic future theories for filopodium stability are likely to rely on an accurate treatment of such steric effects, as analysed in this work.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||
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Subjects: | Q Science > QC Physics Q Science > QH Natural history > QH301 Biology |
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Divisions: | Faculty of Science > Physics | ||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Cytology, Cytology -- Research, Cell membranes -- Research, Molecular biology -- Mathematical models, Molecular microbiology -- Mathematical models | ||||
Journal or Publication Title: | PLoS One | ||||
Publisher: | Public Library of Science | ||||
ISSN: | 1932-6203 | ||||
Official Date: | 2013 | ||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | Volume 8 | ||||
Number: | Number 3 | ||||
Page Range: | Article no. e59010 | ||||
DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0059010 | ||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access |
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