Tag Archives: actin
Gap junction assembly mechanisms in the cochlea
Hearing loss is the most common congenital sensory deficit. About 1-3 in 1000 children are affected at birth or during early childhood by severe hearing loss, which is defined as prelingual deafness, with at least half of
Cell Movement: It’s all a balancing act!
Although it may appear solid, the human body is full of moving cells. For example, the mass migration of cells helps shape the human body in the womb. Skin cells crawl towards each other during wound healing
How cells crawl… that’s right, crawl
Within our bodies, every cell must crawl – some only a few millionths of an inch, while others, like nerve fibers, must make their way from the spinal cord to the tips of our toes. The ability
Guanine-nucleotide exchange factor that promotes loss of polygonal cell shape
Actin cytoskeleton dynamics determines cell shape and movement. Fibroblasts or epithelial cells, for instance, adhere and spread onto planar surfaces adopting an elongated polygonal shape. Underneath the cytoplasmic membrane, local activation of small GTPase enzymes of the
Muscling in on molecular machines
The concept of a “power stroke” – a free-energy releasing shape change of a protein – appears in almost every textbook that deals with the molecular details of muscle, bacterial flagella, and many other bio-molecular machines. Researchers
