A theory to describe emergent properties of composite F-actin and vimentin networks

Abstract

Synthetic biopolymeric gels demands a great interest as biomaterials to mimic many biological scaffolding structures, which can contribute to a better understanding of the cytoskeleton-like structural building blocks and soft nanotechnology. In particular semiflexible F-actin and vimentin intermediate filaments (IF) form complex networks, and are key regulators of cellular stiffness. While the mechanics of F-actin networks or IF have already been characterised individually, the interaction between this two networks is largely unknown. Experimental studies using large deformations rheology show that co-polymerisation of F-actin and IF can produce composite networks either stronger or weaker than pure F-actin networks. We theoretically verify these effects developing a model into the framework of nonlinear continuum mechanics. We defined a free energy functional considering the role of the entropic elasticity for semiflexible networks with transient crosslinks and also an energetic term to describe the interaction parameter which allows the coupling among the two networks. We validated the theoretical model with measurements performed in a previous work on large deformations rheological experiments with different concentrations of actin and vimentin. The resultant model can be useful to represent with a relatively simple way the mechanics of the networks, to analyse experimental results and to plan new studies in the area.