Liquid-like condensates that bind actin promote assembly and bundling of actin filaments

Abstract

Biomolecular condensates perform diverse physiological functions. Previous work showed that VASP, a processive actin polymerase, forms condensates that assemble and bundle actin. Here, we show that this behavior does not require proteins with specific polymerase activity. Specifically, condensates composed of Lamellipodin, a protein that binds actin but is not an actin polymerase, were also capable of assembling actin filaments. To probe the minimum requirements for condensate-mediated actin bundling, we developed an agent-based computational model. Guided by its predictions, we hypothesized that any condensate-forming protein that binds filamentous actin could bundle filaments through multivalent crosslinking. To test this, we added a filamentous-actin-binding motif to Eps15, a condensate-forming protein that does not normally bind actin. The resulting chimera formed condensates that facilitated efficient assembly and bundling of actin filaments. Collectively, these findings broaden the family of proteins that could organize cytoskeletal filaments to include any filamentous-actin-binding protein that participates in protein condensation.