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SUMMARY:The Physical Chemistry of Actomyosin Cortex Self-Assembly in C ele
 gans oocytes - Arjun Narayanan (New York University)
DTSTART:20231009T094000Z
DTEND:20231009T102000Z
UID:TALK204772@talks.cam.ac.uk
DESCRIPTION:As the C. elegans oocyte begins to develop\, it must first fil
 l the region just under its plasma membrane with a contractile and dynamic
  meshwork of actomyosin filaments. How is this first actomyosin cortex put
  together from constituent molecules? I will describe the discovery that i
 n C. elegans oocytes\, actomyosin cortical assembly relies on the emergenc
 e of thousands of short-lived protein condensates rich in actin filaments\
 , and filament nucleators. We extract empirical growth laws governing the 
 composition dependent chemical dynamics of these condensates. We show that
 &nbsp\; in contrast to condensate growth via diffusion - here\, condensate
  growth is&nbsp\;chemically driven. The associated chemical reactions obey
  mass action kinetics despite governing both composition and size. Remarka
 bly\, this coupling of mass action kinetics and assembly kinetics highligh
 ts several novel principles of intracellular physical chemistry likely to 
 be applicable across cell biology.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute
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