Boolean gates on actin filaments

TL;DR

This paper models actin filaments as nonlinear transmission lines to demonstrate how voltage pulse interactions can implement Boolean logic gates and a half-adder, suggesting potential biological and technological applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel model of actin filaments supporting Boolean logic operations through voltage pulse interactions, bridging biology and computation.

Findings

Voltage pulses can represent digital bits on actin filaments.

Interactions between pulses can facilitate or inhibit signal propagation.

Logical gates and a half-adder can be constructed using pulse interactions.

Abstract

Actin is a globular protein which forms long polar filaments in the eukaryotic cytoskeleton. Actin networks play a key role in cell mechanics and cell motility. They have also been implicated in information transmission and processing, memory and learning in neuronal cells. The acting filaments have been shown to support propagation of voltage pulses. Here we apply a coupled nonlinear transmission line model of actin filaments to study interactions between voltage pulses. By assigning a logical {\sc Truth} to the presence of a voltage pulses in a given location of the actin filament, and {\sc False} to the pulse's absence we represent digital information transmission along these filaments. When two pulses, representing Boolean values of input variables, interact, then they can facilitate or inhibit further propagation of each other. We explore this phenomenon to construct Boolean logical gates and a one-bit half-adder with interacting voltage pulses. We discuss implications of these findings on cellular process and technological applications.