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Biophysics

Fashionable cells

Nature volume 435, pages 1172–1173 (2005)Cite this article

How can cells deform yet maintain optimal function? Probing the similarities in the properties of a cell's network of structural filaments, and those of soft glassy materials, may help in tackling this question.

Most of the cells that make up our body are supported by a cytoskeleton, an internal network of protein filaments. This network does not merely act as a scaffold that defines cell shape and organizes intracellular organelles, but also allows the cell to be malleable and motile, and adapt to strains imposed intern-ally and externally. As they report in Nature Materials, Bursac et al.1 have combined observations of the cytoskeleton in action with some principles derived from condensed-matter physics to offer a fresh perspective on cytoskeletal dynamics.

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  1. the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, James Hogg iCAPTURE Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, V6Z 1Y6, British Columbia, Canada

    Chun Y. Seow

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  1. Chun Y. Seow
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Seow, C. Fashionable cells. Nature 435, 1172–1173 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/4351172a

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