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Cell motility

Braking WAVEs

Nature volume 418, pages 732–733 (2002)Cite this article

A Correction to this article was published on 26 September 2002

When cells move, they alter their internal skeleton to push membrane out at the front and pull it in at the back. New work fills in some of the gaps in our knowledge of how this process is regulated.

Cells come in many different shapes, depending on their function. Neurons, for example, extend long, branching protrusions (axons) to form the web of cellular connections found in the brain. Many other types of cell use changes in their shape to move, and this is an essential property of immune cells, as they crawl through tissues in their search for pathogens. Günther Gerisch's spectacular time-lapse film1 of one such immune cell, a neutrophil, chasing a bacterium highlights the ability of cells to sense external signals and to direct their migration towards them. Not surprisingly, however, cell migration also has its dark side and, when not tightly controlled, can lead to cancer cells invading nearby tissues and spreading through the body. It has long been known that a small protein called Rac acts as a molecular switch that affects many aspects of cell shape and migration2. On page 790 of this issue, Eden and co-workers3 shed light on a new mechanism by which Rac acts upon another key protein in the movement business — WAVE1.

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Figure 1: Regulation of actin polymerization, and hence cell movement, by the WASP and WAVE proteins.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Royal Free and University College School of Medicine, 91 Riding House Street, London, W1W 7BS, UK

    Giles O. C. Cory & Anne J. Ridley

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  1. Giles O. C. Cory
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  2. Anne J. Ridley
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Correspondence to Anne J. Ridley.

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Cory, G., Ridley, A. Braking WAVEs. Nature 418, 732–733 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/418732a

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