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Nonlinear contractile response of actomyosin active gels to control signals

James Clarke*, Francis Cavanna*, Aniket Marne, Anthony Davolio, and José Alvarado†

  • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
  • †Contact author: alv@chaos.utexas.edu
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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 043181 – Published 19 November, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/716p-g9q9

Abstract

Biological systems tightly regulate their physiological state using control signals. This includes the actomyosin cytoskeleton, a contractile active gel that consumes chemical free energy to drive many examples of cellular mechanical behavior. Upstream regulatory pathways activate or inhibit actomyosin activity. However, the contractile response of the actomyosin cytoskeleton to control signals remains poorly characterized. Here, we employ reconstituted actomyosin active gels and subject them to step and pulsatile activation inputs. We find evidence for a nonlinear impulse response, which we quantify via a transfer function δɛ/δg that relates input free-energy pulses δg to output strain pulses δɛ. We find a scaling relation δɛ/δg∼g−0.3. The negative sign of the exponent represents a decreased effectiveness of a contracting gel in converting energy to strain. We ascribe nonlinearity in our system to a density-dependent mechanism, which contrasts strain-stiffening nonlinear responses to external stresses. Contractile response to control signals is an essential step toward understanding how information from mechanical signaling processes flows through actomyosin networks in living, and likely also synthetic, cells.

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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 043181– Published 19 November, 2025
  • Received 17 November 2024
  • Accepted 11 September 2025
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