File S1 - Multi-Platform Compatible Software for Analysis of Polymer Bending Mechanics

Text contains notes on sample preparation, analysis results for included sample data and descriptions of output files generated by Persistence. Three figures are also included as described below. Figure S1 Potential error in filament reconstruction. A. An image of two actin filaments that cross each other. B. A correct filament reconstruction from the image in A despite filament crossover. C. An image of the same two actin filaments in A at a subsequent time. D. An incorrect filament reconstruction from the image in C showing a continuation of the filament reconstruction along the adjacent filament. Figure S2 Effect of standard deviation of relative angle determination on cosine correlation value of a straight line. Top panel shows relative tangent angle as a function of segment length s, with 0 (black square), 0.1 (red circle), 0.25 (green triangle) and 0.35 (blue inverted triangle) radians of standard deviation. Bottom panel shows the corresponding cosine values. The average cosine values corresponding to standard deviations of 0, 0.1, 0.25 and 0.35 radians in relative angle determination are 1, 0.995, 0.97 and 0.94 respectively. The data shows that the non-linear and non one-to-one relationship between an angle and its cosine leads to asymmetric error propagation in the cosine value resulting from the error in the determination of relative angles. Since the cosine function cannot have a value greater than one, the asymmetric error propagation will reduce the cosine value. Figure S3 Cosine correlation plot. The semiflexible regime ranges approximately from 0.5*Lp to 8*Lp. For polymers having L>Lp and an instrument with high enough resolution, a polymer segment can be chosen such that Ls∼Lp to run the analysis. (DOCX)