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First published online March 8, 2006

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Setting a Crac-king pace

Eukaryotic cells sense chemical gradients during a variety of physiological processes and then move up or down the gradients by extending pseudopods. The molecular mechanisms involved in such chemotaxis are evolutionarily conserved and have been studied extensively in Dictyostelium. Pleckstrin homology (PH)-domain proteins bind to phosphatidylinositol 3,4,5-triphosphates [PtdIns(3,4,5)P₃] at the leading edge of chemotaxing Dictyostelium cells to regulate pseudopod formation. Now, Masahiro Ueda and co-workers reveal that the steady-state localization of the PH-domain protein Crac at the leading edge pseudopod is maintained by rapid exchange of individual molecules (see p. 1071). The authors track single Crac-GFP molecules and report that most bind very transiently to PtdIns(3,4,5)P₃ at the front of migrating cells; a few bind more stably to adenyl cyclase A (ACA)-dependent sites at the rear of the cells, where they might regulate ACA activity. The authors propose that the dynamic binding behaviour of PH-domain proteins allows Dictyostelium to reorientate rapidly in response to directional changes of chemoattractant and suggest that other chemotactic signalling components may exhibit dynamic behaviour similar to that of Crac.

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Single-molecule analysis of chemoattractant-stimulated membrane recruitment of a PH-domain-containing protein

Satomi Matsuoka, Miho Iijima, Tomonobu M. Watanabe, Hidekazu Kuwayama, Toshio Yanagida, Peter N. Devreotes, and Masahiro Ueda
JCS 2006 119: 1071-1079. [Abstract] [Full Text]  

This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Related articles in JCS Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Search for Related Content