Figure 6.

Schematic depiction of actin network organization at low versus high Abl activity. At low Abl activity (low Arp2/3), the actin network includes a population of long filaments (orange). Since these can bridge between subnetworks, applying myosin contractility causes the entire network to condense as a single unit. At high Abl activity (high Arp2/3), enhanced nucleation shifts the actin filament distribution towards shorter lengths (blue filaments). In the absence of a population of long filaments, contractility leads to local condensation of individual actomyosin subnetworks but the subnetworks remain separate and spread out through the reaction volume. Actin filaments are shown as lines; for clarity, myosin is not shown.