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First published online March 30, 2007

Journal of Cell Science 120, 804e (2007)
© The Company of Biologists Limited
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In this issue

Virtual actin networks match reality


Figure 1

Actin polymerization is thought to drive the formation of lamellipodia and other protrusions at the leading edge of migrating cells. Lamellipodia contain a dense actin network but, although the assembly of such networks has been reconstituted in vitro, their dynamic and structural properties in lamellipodia are poorly understood. On p. 1491, Sébastien Schaub, Jean-Jacques Meister and Alexander Verkhovsky remedy this by comparing experimental and simulated images of actin networks. They create virtual actin networks by assuming that the nucleation of new branched filaments and their capping occurs at random along the lamellipodia's leading edge (a dendritic nucleation mechanism). Images of these simulated networks, report the authors, closely resemble electron microscopic and fluorescence images of the lamellipodia of fish keratocytes and can be used to estimate the length and orientation of actin filaments in these structures. Importantly, the close correspondence between the real and virtual images indicates that dendritic nucleation alone may account for the formation of actin networks in lamellipodia; no bundling proteins seem to be required.


Related articles in JCS:

Analysis of actin filament network organization in lamellipodia by comparing experimental and simulated images
Sébastien Schaub, Jean-Jacques Meister, and Alexander B. Verkhovsky
JCS 2007 120: 1491-1500. [Abstract] [Full Text]  




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