Acto-myosin network growth and remodeling in vivo is based on a large number of chemical and mechanical processes, which are mutually coupled and spatially and temporally resolved. To investigate the fundamental principles behind the self-organization of these networks, we have developed detailed physico-chemical, stochastic models of actin filament growth dynamics, where the mechanical rigidity of filaments and their corresponding deformations under internally and externally generated forces are taken into account. Our work sheds light on the interplay between the chemical and mechanical processes, and also will highlights the importance of diffusional and active transport phenomena. For example, we showed that molecular transport plays an important role in determining the shapes of the commonly observed force-velocity curves. We also investigated the nonlinear mechano-chemical couplings between an acto-myosin network and an external deformable substrate.
