Assembly and disassembly of model cytoskeleton system

Masui, Tomomi; Shikinaka, Kazuhiro*; Kwon, H.*; Koizumi, Satoshi; Hashimoto, Takeji; Iwase, Hiroki; Kakugo, Akira*; Gong, J.*

Actin is one of the most abundant cytoskeleton proteins in eucaryotic cell. They play a crucial role in cell motility by polymerizing monomeric globular G-actin into polymeric filamentous actin (F-actin). Withactin-binding proteins (ABPs), they form higher order structures such as linear bundles, two-dimensional networks and three-dimensional gels. In this study we have constructed model cytoskeleton system composed of F-actin, cationic polymer and salt. To investigate salt induced hierarchical structure change we employed fluorescence microscopy and small angle neutron scattering (SANS) technique.