Measuring the energetic cost of generating biological order

Every second, millions of cells go through mitosis in the human body, a process dividing the cells and their genetic content.

In eukaryotic cells, a cytoskeletal structure named the spindle apparatus is responsible for physically separating the duplicated chromosomes. The self-organization of filaments (microtubules) and associated molecular motor proteins shape this structure. For decades, the dynamics of active cytoskeletal matter have been investigated both in vivo and in vitro.

However, a comprehensive quantitative understanding of the dynamics of the constituents and their energy budget remains elusive.This action aims to investigate the non-equilibrium dynamics of contractile self-organizing active cytoskeletal material through energy and order quantification and to establish a field-based model to describe energetics and dynamics in three dimensions.