Active mechanics of sea star oocytes

Active mechanics of sea star oocytes | bioRxiv Skip to main content Home About Submit ALERTS / RSS Search for this keyword Advanced Search New Results Active mechanics of sea star oocytes View ORCID Profile Peter J. Foster , Alexandra Zampetaki , Jinghui Liu , View ORCID Profile Sebastian Fürthauer , View ORCID Profile Nikta Fakhri doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.04.22.489189 Peter J. Foster 1 Physics of Living Systems, Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA 2 Department of Physics, Brandeis University , Waltham, MA 3 Department of Physics and Astronomy, Bridge Institute, Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience, University of Southern California , Los Angeles, CA, 90089, USA Find this author on Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for this author on this site ORCID record for Peter J. Foster For correspondence: peterfos{at}usc.edu fuerthauer{at}iap.tuwien.ac.at fakhri{at}mit.edu Alexandra Zampetaki 4 Institute for Applied Physics , TU Wien, A-1040 Wien, Austria Find this author on Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for this author on this site Jinghui Liu 1 Physics of Living Systems, Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA 5 Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics , Dresden, SN, 01307, Germany Find this author on Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for this author on this site Sebastian Fürthauer 4 Institute for Applied Physics , TU Wien, A-1040 Wien, Austria 6 Center for Computational Biology, Flatiron Institute , New York, NY, 10010, USA Find this author on Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for this author on this site ORCID record for Sebastian Fürthauer For correspondence: peterfos{at}usc.edu fuerthauer{at}iap.tuwien.ac.at fakhri{at}mit.edu Nikta Fakhri 1 Physics of Living Systems, Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA Find this author on Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for this author on this site ORCID record for Nikta Fakhri For correspondence: peterfos{at}usc.edu fuerthauer{at}iap.tuwien.ac.at fakhri{at}mit.edu Abstract Full Text Info/History Metrics Supplementary material Preview PDF Abstract Cell shape changes, driven by the contractile actomyosin cortex, are essential for multicellular organisms. Yet, how contractility and cell shape changes emerge from molecular scale interactions between proteins in the actomyosin cortex remains unclear. Oocytes of the bat star Patiria miniata exhibit a traveling wave of cellular deformation during meiosis, known as a surface contraction wave (SCW). Here, we exploit this highly stereotypical deformation to study how cortical properties are set by microscale processes. By pharmacologically modulating the levels of polymerized actin, we show that the wildtype composition maximizes the cellular deformation rate. To understand these results, we developed an active fluid model for shape changes that demonstrates that deformation rates are set by the ratio between cortical viscosity and active contractile stresses and provides a framework for deriving these two key material properties from coarse-grained molecular-scale interactions. In this model, the ratio of active stress to viscosity peaks at intermediate admixtures of passive crosslinkers. This explains the observations of the drug treatment experiments and makes additional predictions, namely that overexpression of either myosin or passive crosslinkers would decrease deformation rates, which we verified experimentally. Together, this shows that the interplay between cortical active stress and viscosity relies on balancing the ratio of myosin to passive crosslinkers on each filament, which can be modulated by actin density. Our results argue that changing the relative molecular compositions of cortical crosslinks and motors provides a mechanism that biological systems could exploit for robust and predictable control over both viscosity and active stresses. Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Footnotes Changes to figures 1 and 2; New Figure 3; Additional authors and updated affiliations; Substantial extension of theory Funder Information Declared U.S. National Science Foundation, https://ror.org/021nxhr62 , CAREER , MRSEC DMR-2011846 Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, https://ror.org/006wxqw41 , GBMF4513 Vienna Science and Technology Fund , 10.47379/VRG20002 Copyright The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license . Back to top Previous Next Posted April 09, 2026. Download PDF Supplementary Material Email Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv. NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article. Your Email * Your Name * Send To * Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas. 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Foster , Alexandra Zampetaki , Jinghui Liu , Sebastian Fürthauer , Nikta Fakhri bioRxiv 2022.04.22.489189; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.04.22.489189 Citation Manager Formats BibTeX Bookends EasyBib EndNote (tagged) EndNote 8 (xml) Medlars Mendeley Papers RefWorks Tagged Ref Manager RIS Zotero Tweet Widget Facebook Like Google Plus One Subject Area Biophysics Subject Areas All Articles Animal Behavior and Cognition (7996) Biochemistry (18704) Bioengineering (14817) Bioinformatics (44313) Biophysics (22543) Cancer Biology (19661) Cell Biology (26829) Clinical Trials (138) Developmental Biology (13922) Ecology (20950) Epidemiology (2067) Evolutionary Biology (25404) Genetics (16137) Genomics (23455) Immunology (18657) Microbiology (42370) Molecular Biology (18015) Neuroscience (93236) Paleontology (696) Pathology (2975) Pharmacology and Toxicology (5079) Physiology (8092) Plant Biology (15963) Scientific Communication and Education (2094) Synthetic Biology (4546) Systems Biology (10212) Zoology (2381)

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