RYK-mediated filopodial pathfinding facilitates midgut elongation

Growth cone pathfinding and filopodial dynamics are mediated separately by Cdc42 activation.

Although evidence exists that activation of the Rho family GTPase Cdc42 affects axonal development, its specific roles within a growth cone are not well delineated. To evaluate the model that Cdc42 activation regulates growth cone navigation by promoting filopodial activity, we adopted a live analysis strategy that uses transgenic Drosophila lines in which neurons coexpressed constitutively act...

Frizzled/RYK mediated signalling in axon guidance.

Successful axon navigation depends on the competence of the axon growing tip to receive and integrate information provided by multiple, spatially organised molecular cues arranged along the axon trajectory. Several recent studies have raised the intriguing possibility that 'morphogen' signalling, known to give cell-specific positional information during tissue patterning, is later used to provi...

Human POT1 Facilitates Telomere Elongation by Telomerase

Mammalian telomeric DNA is mostly composed of double-stranded 5'-TTAGGG-3' repeats and ends with a single-stranded 3' overhang. Telomeric proteins stabilize the telomere by protecting the overhang from degradation or by remodeling the telomere into a T loop structure. Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein that synthesizes new telomeric DNA. In budding yeast, other proteins, such as Cdc13p, that may...

SRPN2 facilitates Plasmodium midgut invasion in A. gambiae

Formin 2 regulates the stabilization of filopodial tip adhesions in growth cones and affects neuronal outgrowth and pathfinding in vivo.

Growth cone filopodia are actin-based mechanosensory structures that are essential for chemoreception and the generation of contractile forces necessary for directional motility. However, little is known about the influence of filopodial actin structures on substrate adhesion and filopodial contractility. Formin 2 (Fmn2) localizes along filopodial actin bundles and its depletion does not affect...