Spatio-temporally reconfigurable photo-activable kinesin driven Active Cytoskeleton Composites

The cytoskeleton is a dynamic network of filaments of varying properties, such as stiff microtubules, tensile actin, and space-filling intermediate filaments working alongside associated proteins like motors and crosslinkers. Inspired by this robust biological system of proteins, we are trying to develop reconfigurable active cytoskeleton composites. In this work, we examine formulation of actin-microtubule composites with photo-activatable crosslinking between kinesin motors. This kinesin driven network has contractile properties which can be tuned by photoactivation and characterized through quantitative fluorescence imaging.