Entanglement, elasticity and viscous relaxation of actin solutions

  • 11 August 1998
Abstract
We have investigated the viscosity and the plateau modulus of actin solutions with a magnetically driven rotating disc rheometer. Interpreting the entanglement transition by a mean field theory we estimate the coordination number. For strongly entangled solutions we observed an anomalous scaling of the plateau modulus with concentration. Lastly, we have determined the persistence length of actin from the dependence of the viscosity on polymer length by utilizing a tube model.