Key result
Recent advances in video microscopy and the discovery of leading-edge proteins promise to shed light on the molecular nature of the nucleator that seeds actin polymerization in cell locomotion.
This review discusses the role of actin polymerization in cell locomotion and highlights emerging models and proteins that may elucidate the molecular nature of actin nucleators.
May guide motility research in respiratory models; leaves open nucleator identification in actin dynamics.
Actin filaments forming at the anterior margin of a migrating cell are essential for the formation of filopodia, lamellipodia, and pseudopodia, the "feet" that the cell extends before it. These structures in turn are required for cell locomotion. Yet the molecular nature of the "nucleator" that seeds the polymerization of actin at the leading edge is unknown. Recent advances, including video microscopy of actin dynamics, discovery of proteins unique to the leading edge such as ponticulin, the Mab 2E4 antigen, and ABP 120, and novel experimental models of actin polymerization such as the actin-based movements of intracellular parasites, promise to shed light on this problem in the near future.
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Elaine L. Bearer (1993) conducted a review in Cell locomotion. Recent advances in video microscopy and the discovery of leading-edge proteins promise to shed light on the molecular nature of the nucleator that seeds actin polymerization in cell locomotion.
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