Electrostatic and bending energies predict staggering and splaying in nonmuscle myosin II minifilaments.

ABSTRACT: Recent experiments with super-resolution live cell microscopy revealed that nonmuscle myosin II minifilaments are much more dynamic than formerly appreciated, often showing plastic processes such as splitting, concatenation and stacking. Here we combine sequence information, electrostatics and elasticity theory to demonstrate that the parallel staggers at 14.3, 43.2 and 72 nm have a strong tendency to splay their heads away from the minifilament, thus potentially initiating the diverse processes seen in live cells. In contrast, the straight antiparallel stagger with an overlap of 43 nm is very stable and likely initiates minifilament nucleation. Using stochastic dynamics in a newly defined energy landscape, we predict that the optimal parallel staggers between the myosin rods are obtained

SUBMITTER: Kaufmann TL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7365473 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature