Dresden 2026 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help

BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 36: Statistical Physics of Biological Systems IV (joint session BP/DY)

BP 36.3: Talk

Friday, March 13, 2026, 10:15–10:30, BAR/SCHÖ

Theory of Forces Between Crosslinked Filaments — •Cedrik Barutel and Sebastian Fürthauer — Institute of Applied Physics TU Wien Austria

The cytoskeleton drives essential cellular processes like cell division and chromosome segregation. It consists of filaments that are crosslinked by proteins, many of which are molecular scale motors that consume ATP to do work. The forces that crosslinking proteins generate between cytoskeletal filaments are the key drivers of active cellular mechanics. We derive a generic theory to describe such crosslinking forces.

We construct a theory to describe and predict the forces generated collectively by crosslinking proteins between biofilaments using symmetries, conservation laws, and out-of equilibrium thermodynamic principles. Our approach identifies the full set of phenomenological coefficients governing entropic, active, and frictional crosslinking forces, which allows a quantitative comparison between the effects of different crosslinker mixtures between two filaments. We demonstrate the power and validity of this framework by quantitatively explaining a set of different experimental setups, which combine the effects of passive and active crosslinks

Keywords: Thermodynamics; Molecular Motors; Cytoskeleton; Active matter; Filament interaction