# The Role of Stickiness in the Rheology of Semiflexible Polymers

## TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that polymer-specific stickiness significantly influences the rheological properties of semiflexible polymer networks, challenging the common assumption of neglecting molecular details in modeling.

## Contribution

It introduces the concept of polymer stickiness as a key parameter in the glassy wormlike chain model, linking molecular interactions to bulk rheological behavior.

## Key findings

- Inter-filament interactions affect bulk properties.
- Stickiness can be represented as a single parameter.
- Experimental evidence supports the model.

## Abstract

Semiflexible polymers form central structures in biological material. Modeling approaches usually neglect influences of polymer-specific molecular features aiming to describe semiflexible polymers universally. Here, we investigate the influence of molecular details on networks assembled from filamentous actin, intermediate filaments, and synthetic DNA nanotubes. In contrast to prevalent theoretical assumptions, we find that bulk properties are affected by various inter-filament interactions. We present evidence that these interactions can be merged into a single parameter in the frame of the glassy wormlike chain model. The interpretation of this parameter as a polymer specific stickiness is consistent with observations from macro-rheological measurements and reptation behavior. Our findings demonstrate that stickiness should generally not be ignored in semiflexible polymer models.