Building rigid networks with prestress and selective pruning

Marco Aurelio Galvani Cunha; John C. Crocker; Andrea J. Liu

doi:10.1103/physrevresearch.6.l042020

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arXiv · 2312.06119

Building rigid networks with prestress and selective pruning

Marco Aurelio Galvani Cunha·John C. Crocker·Andrea J. Liu

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Abstract

Biopolymer networks from the intracellular to tissue scale display high rigidity and tensile stress while having coordinations well below the normal threshold for mechanical rigidity. The elastic filaments in these networks are often severed by enzymes in a tension-inhibited manner. The effects of such pruning on the mechanics of prestressed networks have not been studied. We show that networks pruned by a tension-inhibited method remain rigid at much lower coordinations than randomly pruned ones. These findings suggest a possible reason for the repeated evolution of tension-inhibited filament-severing proteins.

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Marco Aurelio Galvani Cunha, John C. Crocker, Andrea J. Liu. 2023-12-11. Building rigid networks with prestress and selective pruning. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevresearch.6.l042020

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