Abstract

Blebs are spherical membrane protrusions that are produced by contractions of the actomyosin cortex. Blebs are often considered to be a hallmark of apoptosis; however, blebs are also frequently observed during cytokinesis and during migration in three-dimensional cultures and in vivo. For tumour cells and a number of embryonic cells, blebbing migration seems to be a common alternative to the more extensively studied lamellipodium-based motility. We argue that blebs should be promoted to a more prominent place in the world of cellular protrusions.

Author affiliations

1. Guillaume Charras is at the London Centre for Nanotechnology, 17–19 Gordon Street, London, WC1H 0AH, UK, and the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Faculty of Life Sciences, Gower Street, University College London, London, UK.
   Email: g.charras@ucl.ac.uk
2. Ewa Paluch is at the Max Planck Institute of Cell Biology and Genetics, Pfotenhauerstr. 108 01307 Dresden, Germany, and at the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, 4 Ks. Trojdena Street, 02-109 Warsaw, Poland.
   Email: paluch@mpi-cbg.de