Guidance of actin filament elongation on filament-binding tracks.

Kimberly A Interliggi, William L Zeile, Suzanne A Ciftan-Hens, Gary E McGuire, Daniel L Purich, Richard B Dickinson

Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, USA.

Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids 2007 Nov 6

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Biomolecular motors, which convert chemical energy into mechanical work in intracellular processes, have high potential in bionanotechnology in vitro as molecular shuttles or nanoscale actuators. In this context, guided elongation of actin filaments in vitro could be used to lay tracks for myosin motor-based shuttles or to direct nanoscale actuators based on actin filament end-tracking motors. To guide the direction of filament polymerization on surfaces, microcontact printing was used to create tracks of chemically modified myosin, which binds to, but cannot exert force on, filaments. These filament-binding tracks captured nascent filaments from solution and guided the direction of their subsequent elongation. The effect of track width and protein surface density on filament alignment and elongation rate was quantified. These results indicate that microcontact printing is a useful method for guiding actin filament polymerization in vitro for biomolecular motor-based applications.

Citation

Kimberly A Interliggi, William L Zeile, Suzanne A Ciftan-Hens, Gary E McGuire, Daniel L Purich, Richard B Dickinson. Guidance of actin filament elongation on filament-binding tracks. Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids. 2007 Nov 6;23(23):11911-6