caa a22 4500 528786164 20190713030956.0 cr unu---uuuuu 180924s2016 xx s 000 0 eng 10.3929/ethz-b-000122114 doi 10.1038/ncomms13120 doi (ETHRESEARCH)oai:www.research-collection.ethz.ch:20.500.11850/122114 Boundaries steer the contraction of active gels [Elektronische Daten] [Matthias Schuppler, Felix C. Keber, Felix C. Kröger, Andreas R. Bausch] Nat Commun Open access ethresearch Cells set up contractile actin arrays to drive various shape changes and to exert forces to their environment. To understand their assembly process, we present here a reconstituted contractile system, comprising F-actin and myosin II filaments, where we can control the local activation of myosin by light. By stimulating different symmetries, we show that the force balancing at the boundaries determine the shape changes as well as the dynamics of the global contraction. Spatially anisotropic attachment of initially isotropic networks leads to a self-organization of highly aligned contractile fibres, being reminiscent of the order formation in muscles or stress fibres. The observed shape changes and dynamics are fully recovered by a minimal physical model. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 ethresearch Schuppler Matthias joint author Keber Felix C. joint author Kröger Felix C. joint author Bausch Andreas R. joint author Nature Communications London : Nature Publishing Group 7, p. 13120 2041-1723 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/122114 text/html WWW-Backlink auf das Repository (Open access) 1 Journal Article ethresearch ETHRESEARCH 856 40 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/122114 text/html WWW-Backlink auf das Repository (Open access) ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Schuppler Matthias joint author ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Keber Felix C. joint author ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Kröger Felix C. joint author ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Bausch Andreas R. joint author ETHRESEARCH 773 0- Nature Communications London : Nature Publishing Group 7, p. 13120 2041-1723 BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 ETHRESEARCH ETHRESEARCH ETHRESEARCH Journal Article Open access