Watching a Cell’s Cytoskeleton Self-organize
Every cell has a cytoskeleton: fibers that give it structure and allow it to move, change shape, and, in some cases, adhere to other cells. A molecular “motor” responsible for a bulk of cytoskeletal movements is myosin, the same protein that enables muscles to contract. Myosin molecules assemble into mini-filaments that then pull on actin filaments, thereby creating cell movement. In addition, the myosin mini-filaments apparently interact with each other, and these interactions lead to the formation of highly ordered arrays of filaments in a cell. The filaments are extremely dynamic, with approximately half the molecules comprising the filament replaced by new ones every minute. Little is understood about how the filaments actually self-organize into functional structures, however.
Although commercial structured illumination microscopes (SIM) are available, they typically capture only one image every 30 seconds – too slow for Bershadsky’s purpose. But Janelia’s pre-commercial, cutting-edge SIM, which can capture one image per second, proved to be exactly what they needed.
Janelia’s SIM instrument allowed them to record movies of the myosin structures in action, revealing “basic things related to cell shape, cell migration, and adhesion,” according to Bershadsky. “It is absolutely impossible to imagine it without looking at the images,” he said. “The whole story of the myosin superstructures is new… It is a breakthrough.”
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