1997 Articles

Elastohydrodynamic study of actin filaments using fluorescence microscopy

Riveline, D.; Wiggins, Chris H.; Golstein, Raymond E.; Ott, A.

We probed the bending of actin subject to external forcing and viscous drag. Single actin filaments were moved perpendicular to their long axis in an oscillatory way by means of an optically tweezed latex bead attached to one end of the filaments. Shapes of these polymers were observed by epifluorescence microscopy. They were found to be in agreement with predictions of semiflexible polymer theory and slender-body hydrodynamics. A persistence length of 7.4±0.2 μm could be extracted.