Counterion-Mediated Attraction and Kinks on Loops of Semiflexible Polyelectrolyte Bundles

A. Cēbers, Z. Dogic, and P. A. Janmey

Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 247801 – Published 21 June 2006

Abstract

The formation of kinks in a loop of bundled polyelectrolyte filaments is analyzed in terms of the thermal fluctuations of charge density due to polyvalent counterions adsorbed on the polyelectrolyte filaments. It is found that the counterion-mediated attraction energy of filaments depends on their bending. By consideration of curvature elasticity energy and counterion-mediated attraction between polyelectrolyte filaments, the characteristic width of the kink and the number of kinks per loop is found to be in reasonable agreement with existing experimental data for rings of bundled actin filaments.

Received 2 January 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.247801

Authors & Affiliations

A. Cēbers¹, Z. Dogic², and P. A. Janmey^3,*

¹Institute of Physics, University of Latvia, Salaspils-1, LV-2169, Latvia
²Rowland Institute at Harvard, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA
³Institute for Medicine and Engineering, Departments of Physiology and Physics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

^*Electronic address: janmey@mail.med.upenn.edu

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Vol. 96, Iss. 24 — 23 June 2006

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