An electron microscopy study revealed key details of actin filaments, which are essential structural elements of cells and muscles. Actin filaments -- protein structures critical to living movement ...

Researchers have visualized at the molecular level how formins bind to the ends of actin filaments. This allowed them to uncover how formins mediate the addition of new actin molecules to a growing ...

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 ...

The discovery opens the door to healthier aging in humans. The cytoskeleton provides most cells with their shape, structure, and internal organization. In turn, the cytoskeleton relies on a type of ...

Researchers at Kanazawa University report in eLife on deciphering the actin structure-dependent preferential cooperative binding of cofilin. The actin filament is a double-stranded helical structure ...

“We are answering fundamental questions of life that scientists have been trying to answer for several decades”, remarks Raunser. In eukaryotic cells, actin proteins are abundant and tend to join ...

Cells in the human body are made to move. They assemble during embryo development, migrate to repair tissue, hunt pathogens, and perform a host of other tasks requiring travel. As part of the ...

Every time our body encounters a new disease-causing agent, a crucial defense system called adaptive immunity comes into play ...

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 ...

In all eukaryotic cells, actin protein assembles to form a network of thin filaments that spread throughout the cell. The actin filaments give the cell its structure, enable the cell to move, and ...