SGER: Mechano-Chemical Approach to Actin Filament Bundle Self-Assembly and Growth

北卡罗莱纳大学教堂山分校的Garegin Papoian获得了理论和计算化学项目探索性研究小额赠款的支持，开展了丝状足自组装和生长-收缩动力学计算模型的初步工作。这项工作的长期目标是阐明肌动蛋白丝束暂时控制的自组装机制。该方法考虑到潜在化学事件的固有随机性和调节蛋白的空间定位。SGER奖允许PI和他的团队显著扩展他们的随机模拟软件包（StochTools）的能力，以允许对各种rilopodial过程进行建模。然后，PI和他的学生计划对提议的初始模型进行模拟，这将为未来更深入的研究奠定基础。通过阐明细胞内的分子过程，这项工作正在产生更广泛的影响。它还影响了学生的培训，并通过该小组正在开发的图形用户界面CyberBacteria帮助开发一个研究人员的网络社区。

Garegin Papoian of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill is supported by a Small Grant for Exploratory Research from the Theoretical and Computational Chemistry program to carry out preliminary work to develop a computational model of filopodia self-assembly and growth-retraction dynamics. The long term goal of the work is to elucidate the mechanism of the temporally-controlled self-assembly of actin-filament bundles. The approach is taking into account the inherently random nature of the underlying chemical events and spatial localization of regulatory proteins. The SGER award is allowing the PI and his group to significantly extend the capabilities of their stochastic simulation software package, StochTools, to allow modeling of various rilopodial processes. The PI and his students then plan to carry out similuations of a proposed initial model which will lay the groundwork for a future more involved study. The work is having a broader impact through its role in illuminating molecular processes within the cell. It is also impacting student training and helping to develop a cyber community of researchers through the graphical user interface, CyberBacteria, that the group is developing.