Enabling actin

Enabling actin

wo new studies indicate that cycles of phosphorylation and dephosphorylation may be required during clathrin-mediated endocytosis. A newly identified kinase is responsible for the required phosphorylation. Clathrin and the adaptor protein 2 (AP2) complex are the major coat proteins of clathrin-coated vesicles (CCVs). Among components of the AP2 complex are ␣ and ␤ 2 adaptins, which mediate AP2 ...

Enabling Compassionate Health Care: Perils, Prospects and Perspectives

There is an emerging consensus that caring and compassion are under threat in the frenetic environment of modern healthcare. Enabling and sustaining compassionate care requires not only a focus on the needs of the patient, but also on those of the care giver. As such, threats and exhortations to health professionals are likely to have limited and perverse effects and it is to the organisational...

Bacterial nucleators: actin' on actin.

The actin cytoskeleton is a key target of numerous microbial pathogens, including protozoa, fungi, bacteria and viruses. In particular, bacterial pathogens produce and deliver virulence effector proteins that hijack actin dynamics to enable bacterial invasion of host cells, allow movement within the host cytosol, facilitate intercellular spread or block phagocytosis. Many of these effector prot...

Endothelial Actin-Binding Proteins and Actin

Actin cytoskeleton: Thinking globally, actin’ locally

A class of proteins dubbed pipmodulins bind to and sequester the phospholipid PIP2 in the plasma membrane. Local release of PIP2 controls actin dynamics in specific subcellular regions and plays a critical role in regulating actin-based cell motility and morphogenesis.