Computational Analysis of Viscoelastic Properties of Crosslinked Actin Networks
Figure 10
The supportive framework bearing most of stress.
(A) Network composed of filamentous actin connected via ACPs that support the highest 25% of ACP bending forces. In contrast to Figure 6B, there are filaments that are almost perpendicular to the diagonal direction on the x-z plane, which are not highly stretched yet transmit load by bending of ACPs connected to them. (B) Stress exerted by prestrained networks (γ = 0.4) consisting of a fraction of actin filaments and ACPs. The extent of ACP bending forces is employed as a criterion to retain elements. Each symbol corresponds to a different percentage ratio of the number of ACPs remaining in a rebuilt network to that in the original network: 100% (black circles), 75% (magenta triangles), 50% (blue inverted triangles), and 25% (green diamonds). The fraction of remaining actin segments is, respectively: 100%, 79%, 52%, and 28%. (inset) Orientation angles of actin segments projected onto the x-z plane for the network in Figure 10A. Segments oriented in the z direction have a value of 0°. Most actin segments in the reduced structure are oriented in the (+x)-(+z) direction (45°), but segments with other orientations are also important, presumably because they transmit stress through bending of the ACPs attached to them.