An electron microscopy study unravels the mysteries of actin filament polarity
Thursday, June 8, 2023 - 08:32
in Physics & Chemistry
Actin filaments—protein structures critical to living movement from single cells to animals—have long been known to have polarity associated with their physical characteristics, with growing "barbed" and shrinking "pointed" ends. The ends of the filament are also different in the way they interact with other proteins in cells. However, the mechanism that determines these differences has never been entirely clear to scientists. Now, researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have revealed key atomic structures of the ends of the actin filament through the use of a technique called cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM).