QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s):
Home     Help     Feedback     Subscriptions     Archive     Search     Table of Contents

First published online October 22, 2003

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 Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Move along there: focal adhesions and cell motility

Cell locomotion requires coordinated cycles of protrusion of the leading edge of the cell, formation of new matrix adhesions, and retraction of the trailing edge. Matrix adhesions, which form first as focal complexes (FXs) and then transform into focal adhesions (FAs), provide anchors for the contractile machinery of the cell. By analysing endothelial cells migrating into a 500 µm wide scratch in a confluent monolayer of cells (an in vitro `wound'), Benjamin Geiger and colleagues provide a detailed description of the early stages of FA development (see p. 4605). They report that short-lived FXs, which form behind the leading lamellae of motile cells, accumulate FA proteins (for example, ß₃-integrin and paxillin) in an ordered manner that depends on their age. The final composition of the FXs is distinct from FAs, however, in that they lack zyxin, and the researchers show that the transition from paxillin-rich FXs to zyxin-containing FAs occurs only when the leading edge of the cell stops advancing or retracts.

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

Related articles in JCS:

Early molecular events in the assembly of matrix adhesions at the leading edge of migrating cells

Ronen Zaidel-Bar, Christoph Ballestrem, Zvi Kam, and Benjamin Geiger
JCS 2003 116: 4605-4613. [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 Social Bookmarking                         What's this?