Motor-Driven Dynamics in Actin-Myosin Networks

The effect of myosin motor protein activity on the filamentous actin (F-actin) rheological response is studied using diffusing wave spectroscopy. Under conditions of saturating motor activity, we find an enhancement of longitudinal filament fluctuations corresponding to a scaling of the viscoelastic shear modulus $G_d\left(\omega \right)\sim {\omega }^{7/8}$. As the adenosine tri-phosphate reservoir sustaining motor activity is depleted, we find an abrupt transient to a passive, “rigor state” and a return to dissipation dominated by transverse filament modes. Single-filament measurements of the apparent persistence length support the notion that motor activity leads to an increase in the effective temperature for tangential motion.