Branched actin networks at the leading edge of a crawling cell evolve via protein-regulated processes such as polymerization, depolymerization, capping, branching, and severing. A formulation of these processes is presented and analyzed to study steady-state network morphology. In bulk, we identify several scaling regimes in severing and branching protein concentrations and find that the coupling between severing and branching is optimally exploited for conditions { \it in vivo}. Near the leading edge, we find qualitative agreement with the { \it in vivo} morphology.
Categories: cond-mat.soft q-bio.CB