Electrical impulse characterization along actin filaments in pathological conditions
Description
We present an interactive Mathematica notebook that characterizes the electrical impulses along actin filaments in both muscle and non-muscle cells for a wide range of physiological and pathological conditions. The simplicity of the theoretical formulation, and high performance of the Mathematica software, enable the analysis of multiple conditions without computational restrictions. The program is based on a multi-scale (atomic → monomer → filament) approach capable of accounting for the atomistic details of a protein molecular structure, its biological environment, and their impact on the travel distance, velocity, and attenuation of monovalent ionic wave packets propagating along microfilaments. The interactive component allows investigators to choose the experimental conditions (intracellular Vs in vitro), nucleotide state (ATP Vs ADP), actin isoform (alpha, gamma, beta, and muscle or non-muscle cell), as well as a conformation model that covers a variety of mutants and wild-type (the control) actin filaments. We used the computational tool to analyze environmental changes such as temperature effects and pH changes of the surrounding solutions, as well as structural changes to an actin monomer due to radius changes. Additionally, we investigated for the first time the electrostatic consequences of actin mutations from different disease conditions. These studies may provide an unprecedented molecular understanding of why and how age, inheritance, and disease conditions induce dysfunctions in the biophysical mechanisms underlying the propagation of electrical signals along actin filaments.