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While semi-flexible polymers and fibers are an important class of materialdue to their rich mechanical properties, it remains unclear how theseproperties relate to the microscopic conformation of the polymers. Actinfilaments constitute an ideal model polymer system due to their micron-sizedlength and relatively high stiffness that allow imaging at the single filamentlevel. Here we study the effect of entanglements on the conformational dynamicsof actin filaments in shear flow. We directly measure the fullthree-dimensional conformation of single actin filaments, using confocalmicroscopy in combination with a counter-rotating cone-plate shear cell. Weshow that initially entangled filaments form disentangled orientationallyordered hairpins, confined in the flow-vorticity plane. In addition, shear flowcauses stretching and shear alignment of the hairpin tails, while the filamentlength distribution remains unchanged. These observations explain thestrain-softening and shear-thinning behavior of entangled F-actin solutions,which aids the understanding of the flow behavior of complex fluids containingsemi-flexible polymers.

Direct visualization of flow-induced conformational transitions of single actin filaments in entangled solutions