Selective assembly and guiding of actomyosin using carbon nanotube network monolayer patterns

Abstract

We report a new method for the selective assembly and guiding of actomyosin using carbon nanotube patterns. In this method, monolayer patterns of the single-walled carbon nanotube (swCNT) network were prepared via the self-limiting mechanism during the directed assembly process, and they were used to block the adsorption of both myosin and actin filaments on specific substrate regions. The swCNT network patterns were also used as an efficient barrier for the guiding experiments of actomyosin. This is the first result showing that inorganic nanostructures such as carbon nanotubes can be used to control the adsorption and activity of actomyosin. This strategy is advantageous over previous methods because it does not require complicated biomolecular linking processes and nonbiological nanostructures are usually more stable than biomolecular linkers.