A Torsion Pendulum for Measurement of the Viscoelasticity of Biopolymers and Its Application to Actin Networks

This report describes the design, construction, and method of operation of a torsion pendulum which is specifically designed for the measurement of soft and fragile biopolymer gels. The pendulum can be assembled and employed in a standard biological laboratory and provides data that currently require access to specialized equipment usually limited to physics or material science laboratories. This instrument measures the shear moduli of viscoelastic materials by applying either steady or oscillating shear forces to a disc-shaped sample and measuring the resulting angular displacement of a pendulum attached to one face of the sample. The device is easily constructed using commercially available materials and no specialized machinery. Shear stresses as low as 0.03 Pa and shear rates as low as 0.00003 s-1 can be measured in steady shear experiments, and dynamic shear moduli from 1 to 2500 Pa measured by oscillatory measurements with sample volumes as low as 0.5 ml. The use of the torsion pendulum is illustrated by measuring the effects of two different actin binding proteins on the viscoelasticity of actin filament networks.