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Cell biology

Actin filaments up against a wall

Nature volume 464, pages 365–366 (2010)Cite this article

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The front of motile cells is thought to be pushed out by branched filaments of actin protein abutting the cell membrane. New work challenges this textbook view, showing that actin branches grow away from, or obliquely to, a surface.

Monomers of the protein actin assemble into a filamentous scaffold that propels the cell forward, and that can also power the movement of intracellular pathogens and transport vesicles, as well as biomimetic objects such as beads and liposomes1,2. The complex formed by actin-related proteins 2 and 3 (the Arp2/3 complex) is a 'nucleator' of actin polymerization, which causes branching in this scaffold. The existing model for actin-mediated movement proposes that the fast-growing (barbed) ends of actin filaments are directed towards a surface, such as the cell membrane, where polymerization is catalysed. Writing in Current Biology, Achard et al.3 turn this model on its head by providing a real-time readout of single-filament dynamics in a network growing on a surface. They show that when the growing filament-ends encounter a wall (in this case, a rod or a bead, but by analogy a cell membrane), they orient away from it.

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Figure 1: Actin-network assembly gets a fresh look.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cécile Sykes and Julie Plastino are in the Laboratoire Physico-chimie, Institut Curie, Centre de Recherche, CNRS UMR 168, Université Paris VI, Paris F-75248, France. julie.plastino@curie.fr; cecile.sykes@curie.fr,

    Cécile Sykes & Julie Plastino

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  1. Cécile Sykes
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  2. Julie Plastino
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Sykes, C., Plastino, J. Actin filaments up against a wall. Nature 464, 365–366 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/464365a

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