actin

A single human cell teems with as many 100,000 different proteins. Actin is one of the most abundant and essential of them all. This protein forms into filaments that help make up the skeleton of cells, giving them shape. And as the actin…

Actin filaments -- protein structures critical to living movement from single cells to animals -- have long been known to have polarity associated with their physical characteristics, with growing "barbed" and shrinking "pointed" ends. The…

Metastases occur when cancer cells leave a primary tumor and spread throughout the body. For this, they have to break connections with neighboring cells and migrate to other tissues. Both processes are promoted by signalling molecules…

Toxins released by a type of bacteria that cause diarrheal disease hijack cell processes and force important proteins to assemble into "roads to nowhere," redirecting the proteins away from other jobs that are key to proper cell function, a…

Actin filaments are protein fibers that make up the internal skeleton of the cell. As active elements of our cells, actin filaments support the cell's fusion, movement and are involved in many other cellular processes. Importantly, they are…

Cells are characterized to be stable yet highly flexible. They constantly modify their shape and even move through tissue. These vital properties are based on a dynamically organized network of branched actin filaments, which generates…