First published online March 21, 2007
Journal of Cell Science 120, 705e (2007)
© The Company of Biologists Limited
Microtubules talk filopodia into turning
Cross-talk between the microtubule and actin cytoskeletons is involved in many cellular processes. Joseph Schober, Gary Borisy and co-workers have been investigating how the interaction between microtubules and filopodia (fine actin cytoskeletal projections) is involved in one of these, cell motility. They now report that microtubules make contact with filopodia and stimulate their reorganization in melanoma cells and fibroblasts (see p. 1235). Microtubules grow, through polymerization, from the centre of the cell to its periphery, where their plus ends interact with several sites (including filopodia) that help to coordinate cell movement. The authors' analysis of digital fluorescence images reveals that contact between microtubules and filopodia correlates temporally with filopodia turning and merging and that nocodazole-induced depolymerization of microtubules decreases merging of filopodia and increases their density. Because other results indicate that neither several plus-end-binding proteins nor focal adhesion sites are involved in targeting of microtubules to filopodia, the authors conclude that microtubules participate in directed cell motility by interacting directly with filopodia to alter their dynamics.
Related articles in JCS:
- Microtubule-targeting-dependent reorganization of filopodia
- Joseph M. Schober, Yulia A. Komarova, Oleg Y. Chaga, Anna Akhmanova, and Gary G. Borisy
JCS 2007 120: 1235-1244.
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