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Cycling aggregation patterns of cytoplasmic F-actin coordinated with oscillating tension force generation

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Summary

Isometric contracting protoplasmic veins of Physarum polycephalum show cycling patterns of cytoplasmic F-actin, dependent on their oscillating contraction behaviour (minute rhythms). The process of fibrillogenesis represents a parallel arrangement of F-actin chains (“plasma filaments, microfilaments”) during the isometric contraction phase. A part of the results of the present work corroborates previous results on stretch-activated veins which showed that the fibrillar form of F-actin reflects the isometric contracted state.

During isometric relaxation phase, a disaggregation of the fibrillar pattern takes place and is accompanied by a deparallelisation of F-actin chains. Therefore, the isometric relaxed state of cytoplasmic actomyosin is non-fibrillar in nature. Thus, the morphologically detectable fibrillar form of cytoplasmic actomyosin, according to physiological interpretation, is solely representative of the isometric contracted state.

The question whether assembly-disassembly processes, e.g. G⇌F-actin-transformation, play a role in the contraction-relaxation cycle is discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Cytologie der Universität Bonn, Germany

    K. -E. Wohlfarth-Bottermann & M. Fleischer

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  1. K. -E. Wohlfarth-Bottermann
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  2. M. Fleischer
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Dedicated to Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. W. Bargmann on the occasion of his 70 birthday. — Paper presented at the Cell Surface Project Group workshop “Interrelation of cell surface and cell locomotion”, European Organization for Research on Treatment of Cancer (EORTC), June 6–8, 1975, Zürich, Switzerland.

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Wohlfarth-Bottermann, K.E., Fleischer, M. Cycling aggregation patterns of cytoplasmic F-actin coordinated with oscillating tension force generation. Cell Tissue Res. 165, 327–344 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00222437

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