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Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology 3, 957–964 (1 December 2002) | doi:10.1038/nrm971

How do microtubules guide migrating cells?

J. Victor Small , Benjamin Geiger , Irina Kaverina & Alexander Bershadsky

Microtubules have long been implicated in the polarization of migrating cells, but how they carry out this role is unclear. Here, we propose that microtubules determine cell polarity by modulating the pattern of adhesions that a cell develops with the underlying matrix, through focal inhibitions of contractility.