Experimentally measured phonon spectrum of microtubules

Arooj A. Aslam, Camelia Prodan

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Microtubules are self-assembled protein cylinders with important mechanical roles inside living cells. Here we present an experimental method to measure the transversal collective dynamic modes of taxol stabilized microtubules in vitro. We treat the microtubule as a lattice of particles interacting with harmonic potentials and we use Fourier decomposition of the shape of the microtubule under excitation from thermal energy. We report the phonon spectrum due to these modes in MHz frequencies and the sound velocity is in the order of mm s-1.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number025401
JournalJournal of Physics D: Applied Physics
Volume53
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 2020

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Acoustics and Ultrasonics
  • Surfaces, Coatings and Films

Keywords

  • biomechanics
  • microtubules
  • persistence length
  • phonon spectrum
  • topological phonons

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