Close-up of an actin tail (green) with a kinase involved in catalyzing actin mobility (red) at the tip CURR BIOL, 20:697-702, 2012
ln the daily life of a cell, vesicles and organelles shuttle along filament tracks, DNA unwinds, and mRNA is delivered to its proper destination. Cell motility—the movement of cells and their internal parts—is crucial to biology, often a matter of life or death. Without this ability, cells would be unable to respond to signaling cues, to proliferate, or to fight diseases in the body.
The drivers of cell motility, motor proteins, are molecules that can travel along the surface of a substrate. That substrate can be either DNA or the cell’s internal scaffolding, or cytoskeleton, which is made up of actin filaments and microtubules.
Researchers have made recent strides towards determining how fast motors move with or without cargo, and what happens to the movement ...
