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  • Title: Uncorrelated changes of subunit stability can generate length-dependent disassembly of treadmilling filaments.
    Author: Erlenkämper C, Kruse K.
    Journal: Phys Biol; 2009 Nov 24; 6(4):046016. PubMed ID: 19934493.
    Abstract:
    Unregulated polymer assembly typically leads to exponential length distributions. In living cells, though, the length distribution of cytoskeletal filaments often shows a sharp maximum at a finite value. We discuss a simple mechanism for length regulation that is based on generating an effectively length-dependent disassembly rate by locally acting cytoskeletal proteins. We analyze steady-state distributions by stochastic simulations and develop a method to analytically characterize the typical filament length. We find three different types of behavior: (1) unbounded filament growth, (2) exponential distributions and (3) unimodal distributions, which can be very sharp with a standard deviation much smaller than the mean filament length. We discuss possible implications of our results for subcellular processes.
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