A Multi-Scale Approach to Describe Electrical Impulses Propagating along Actin Filaments in both Intracellular and In-vitro Conditions

摘要

An accurate and efficient characterization of the polyelectrolyte propertiesfor cytoskeleton filaments are key to the molecular understanding of electricalsignal propagation, bundle and network formation, as well as other relevantphysicochemical processes associated with biological functions in eukaryoticcells and their potential nanotechnological applications. In this article, weintroduce an innovative multi-scale approach able to account for the atomisticdetails of a proteins molecular structure, its biological environment, andtheir impact on electrical impulses propagating along wild type Actinfilaments. The approach provides a novel, simple, accurate, approximateanalytic expression for the characterization of electrical impulses in theshape of soliton waveforms. It has been successfully used to determine theeffects of electrolyte conditions and voltage stimulus on the electricalimpulse shape, attenuation and kern propagation velocity in these systems. Ourresults predict the propagation of electrical signal impulses in the form ofsolitons for the range of voltage stimulus and electrolyte solutions typicallypresent in intracellular and in-vitro conditions. This multi-scale theory mayalso be applicable to other highly charged rod-like polyelectrolytes withrelevance in biomedicine and biophysics. It is also able to account formolecular structure conformation (mutation) and biological environment(protonations/deprotonations) changes often present in pathological conditions.