The effect of the filament-obstacle interaction on the force-velocity relation of a growing biopolymer

Abstract

We investigate the effect of filament-obstacle interactions on the force-velocity relation of growing biopolymers, via calculations explicitly treating obstacle diffusion and stochastic addition and subtraction of subunits. We first show that the subunit on- and off-rates satisfy a rigorous thermodynamic relationship determined by the filament-obstacle interaction potential. Both the on- and off-rates depend not only on the average force on the obstacle, but also on the shape of the potential on the nanometer length scale. Basing obstacle-induced reduction of the on-rate entirely on the force overestimates the stall force when there are fluctuations in the force exerted on a filament tip. We then perform simulations and analytic calculations using the thermodynamic relationship. We find, consistent with expectations from general thermodynamic relations, that the "Brownian-Ratchet" model is an upper bound to the growth velocity and that for purely repulsive potentials the growth velocity is essentially that predicted by the Brownian-Ratchet model. For shallow potential wells of depth ~ 5k_BT, which might correspond to transient filament-membrane attachments, the zero-force velocity is a substantial fraction of the free-filament velocity. In this case, the growth velocity can depend strongly on the obstacle diffusion coefficient even when the dimensionless diffusion coefficient is large. The velocity also drops more rapidly than predicted by the Brownian-ratchet model, in some cases by as much as a factor of 50 at an opposing force of 1 pN. For deep potential wells, as might result from strong filament-membrane links, both the on- and off-rates are reduced significantly, slowing polymerization. Such potentials can sustain pulling forces while polymerizing, but only if the attractive well has a "shelf" comparable to or greater than the monomer size.