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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 7: Poster I

BP 7.11: Poster

Monday, March 23, 2009, 17:45–20:00, P3

Cytoskeletal filament length regulation by length-dependent depolymerisation rates — •Christoph Erlenkämper and Karsten Kruse — Theoretical Physics Department, Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken, Germany

In living cells, the length distribution of cytoskeletal filaments often shows a sharp maximum at a finite value. This is in contrast to unregulated polymer growth, which typically leads to exponential distributions. We discuss a simple mechanism by which destabilizing proteins lead to effectively length-dependent disassembly rates. This mechanism produces sharply peaked steady-state distributions.