Artificial cell imitates muscular tension
You can hardly call it a robot, but it is capable of doing things that living cells also do. This 'system' that looks like a few filaments and some connecting pieces that uses only a few components in much more complex cellular networks, does succeed in generating internal powers that are responsible for, say, crawling of a cell. Physicists at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the FOM Foundation and the Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen were able to do so. They have published their research in the scientific journal Science on 19 January 2007.
Just like our body is dependent on bones for its mechanical unimpairedness and solidity, also every cell in our body is mechanically controlled by a skeleton of stiff proteins - the so-called cytoskeleton. Besides, the cytoskeleton is activated and controlled by small 'molecular driving forces' that are, as it were, small engines producing power, just like our bones are set in motion and supported by muscles.
The researchers have created a syntactic model of the active cytoskeleton that shows muscular contractions, as is assumed to occur in most of the living cells. They may even show that these contracting activity may stiffen the cytoskeleton one hundred times by displaying an adaptive and active material that is able to attune its mechanical properties.
This research may lead to fresh views and a new plan of theories for smart and adaptive materials. It also shows that a remarkably plain system, which uses only three components, is able to imitate a specific activity in much more and complex living cells.
For more information, please contact Professor Fred MacKintosh, phone +31 (0)20 598 78 57.
The article is entitled 'Non equilibrium mechanics of active cytoskeletal networks'. It will be published in Science on 19 January 2007. The authors are Daisuke Mizuno, Catherine Tardin, Christoph Schmidt and Fred Mac Kintosh.
The research is part of the FOM research programme 'Material properties of biological assemblies'.