TY - INPR A1 - Vogel, Sven K. A1 - Wölfer, Christian A1 - Ramirez-Diaz, Diego A. A1 - Flassig, Robert J. A1 - Sundmacher, Kai A1 - Schwille, Petra T1 - Symmetry breaking and emergence of directional flows in minimal actomyosin cortices KW - bottom-up synthetic biology KW - motor proteins KW - pattern formation KW - self-organization Y1 - 2020 UR - https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202004.0008/v1 U6 - https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202004.0008.v1 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Vogel, Sven A1 - Wölfer, Christian A1 - Ramirez-Diaz, Diego A1 - Flassig, Robert A1 - Sundmacher, Kai A1 - Schwille, Petra T1 - Symmetry Breaking and Emergence of Directional Flows in Minimal Actomyosin Cortices JF - Cells N2 - Cortical actomyosin flows, among other mechanisms, scale up spontaneous symmetry breaking and thus play pivotal roles in cell differentiation, division, and motility. According to many model systems, myosin motor-induced local contractions of initially isotropic actomyosin cortices are nucleation points for generating cortical flows. However, the positive feedback mechanisms by which spontaneous contractions can be amplified towards large-scale directed flows remain mostly speculative. To investigate such a process on spherical surfaces, we reconstituted and confined initially isotropic minimal actomyosin cortices to the interfaces of emulsion droplets. The presence of ATP leads to myosin-induced local contractions that self-organize and amplify into directed large-scale actomyosin flows. By combining our experiments with theory, we found that the feedback mechanism leading to a coordinated directional motion of actomyosin clusters can be described as asymmetric cluster vibrations, caused by intrinsic non-isotropic ATP consumption with spatial confinement. We identified fingerprints of vibrational states as the basis of directed motions by tracking individual actomyosin clusters. These vibrations may represent a generic key driver of directed actomyosin flows under spatial confinement in vitro and in living systems. Y1 - 2020 UR - https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4409/9/6/1432 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/cells9061432 SP - 1 EP - 10 PB - MDPI ER -