Reconstitution of contractile actomyosin rings in vesicles

Thomas Litschel, Charlotte F. Kelley, Danielle Holz, Maral Adeli Koudehi, Sven K. Vogel, Laura Burbaum, Naoko Mizuno, Dimitrios Vavylonis and Petra Schwille ()
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Thomas Litschel: Department of Cellular and Molecular Biophysics, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry
Charlotte F. Kelley: Department of Cellular and Molecular Biophysics, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry
Danielle Holz: Lehigh University
Maral Adeli Koudehi: Lehigh University
Sven K. Vogel: Department of Cellular and Molecular Biophysics, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry
Laura Burbaum: Department of Cellular and Molecular Biophysics, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry
Naoko Mizuno: Department of Structural Cell Biology, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry
Dimitrios Vavylonis: Lehigh University
Petra Schwille: Department of Cellular and Molecular Biophysics, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract One of the grand challenges of bottom-up synthetic biology is the development of minimal machineries for cell division. The mechanical transformation of large-scale compartments, such as Giant Unilamellar Vesicles (GUVs), requires the geometry-specific coordination of active elements, several orders of magnitude larger than the molecular scale. Of all cytoskeletal structures, large-scale actomyosin rings appear to be the most promising cellular elements to accomplish this task. Here, we have adopted advanced encapsulation methods to study bundled actin filaments in GUVs and compare our results with theoretical modeling. By changing few key parameters, actin polymerization can be differentiated to resemble various types of networks in living cells. Importantly, we find membrane binding to be crucial for the robust condensation into a single actin ring in spherical vesicles, as predicted by theoretical considerations. Upon force generation by ATP-driven myosin motors, these ring-like actin structures contract and locally constrict the vesicle, forming furrow-like deformations. On the other hand, cortex-like actin networks are shown to induce and stabilize deformations from spherical shapes.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-22422-7

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