Abstract
Actin-based cell motility is essential to many biological processes. We built a simplified,three-dimensional computational model and subsequently performed stochastic simulationsto study the growth dynamics of lamellipodia-like branched networks. In this work, we shedlight on the antagonism between capping and anti-capping proteins in regulatingactin dynamics in the filamentous network. We discuss detailed mechanisms bywhich capping and anti-capping proteins affect the protrusion speed of the actinnetwork and the rate of nucleation of filaments. We computed a phase diagramshowing the regimes of motility enhancement and inhibition by these proteins.Our work shows that the effects of capping and anti-capping proteins are mainlytransmitted by modulation of the filamentous network density and local availability ofmonomeric actin. We discovered that the combination of the capping/anti-cappingregulatory network with nucleation-promoting proteins introduces robustnessand redundancy in cell motility machinery, allowing the cell to easily achievemaximal protrusion speeds under a broader set of conditions. Finally, we discussdistributions of filament lengths under various conditions and speculate on theirpotential implication for the emergence of filopodia from the lamellipodial network.
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