Abstract
Coarse grained hydrodynamic theories have so far been successful indescribing patterns formed in in vitro mixtures of active polar filaments(eg Actin, Microtubules) and motors (Myosin, Dyenin, Kinesin). Thereexists little evidence of their validity in vivo.In this talk I will present a theoretical stdy of the dynamics of activepolar filaments on a two dimensional substrate. We determine that thesteady states of the equations of motion of these filaments aregenerically composed of inward pointing asters in different arrangements.The asters display an interesting dynamics in the presence of noise- theybreak up and reform with characteristic residence times, whosedistribution depends on the noise strength.I will further present evidence that the results are applicable to thepatterning of molecules on the cell surface. The evidence is based onanisotropy experiments of GPI-anchored proteins, a class of proteins thatassociate with Actin.
