Positioning and stretching of actin filaments by electric fields

Wigge C, Hinssen H, Reiss G, Herth S. Positioning and stretching of actin filaments by electric fields. APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS. 2010;96(24): 243703.The alignment of biological filaments on surfaces offers a high potential for controllable geometries in lab-on-a-chip-structures and micrototal analysis systems. Actin is a polar filamentous protein with a diameter of 7-8 nm that can be manipulated with strong electric fields. It is demonstrated that with the use of microelectrodes or nanoelectrodes and electric fields of 20 kV/m single actin filaments can be manipulated, stretched, and positioned between gold electrodes. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3455338