Disruption of normal actin organization in renal tubular epithelial cells is an important element of renal injury induced by ischemia. Studies of fixed cells indicate that the cytoskeleton is disrupted by both ischemia and ATP depletion in a site-specific manner. However, few studies have examined these effects in living cells, and the relationship between the time course of ATP reduction and a...

Microfilament dynamics play a critical role in regulating stomatal movement; however, the molecular mechanism underlying this process is not well understood. We report here the identification and characterization of STOMATAL CLOSURE-RELATED ACTIN BINDING PROTEIN1 (SCAB1), an Arabidopsis thaliana actin binding protein. Plants lacking SCAB1 were hypersensitive to drought stress and exhibited redu...

Actin has been found in nuclei of many cell types, but little is known about its form and function. A recent study has shown that a lack of specific export allows actin to accumulate in the nucleus, where it forms a network of actin filaments that may be required to stabilize the giant nucleus of the Xenopus oocyte.

The cellular distribution of the alpha-vascular and gamma-enteric smooth muscle actin isoforms was analyzed in rat embryos from gestational day (gd) 8 through the first neonatal week by in situ antigen localization using isoactin specific monoclonal antibodies. The alpha-vascular actin isoform was first detected on gd 10 in discrete cells lining the embryonic vasculature. By gd 14, this isoform...

In this paper, we analyze the effect of stress-fiber inclusion on the stiffness of an actin random network. To do this, use a discrete random network model to analyze the elastic response of this system in terms of apparent Young’s modulus. First, we showed that for a flat-ended cylindrical AFM indenter the total indentation force has a linear relation with the indentation depth and the indente...

Previous work in our laboratory has shown that microvascular pericytes sort muscle and nonmuscle actin isoforms into discrete cytoplasmic domains (Herman, I. M., and P. A. D'Amore. 1985. J. Cell Biol. 101:43-52; DeNofrio, D.T.C. Hoock, and I. M. Herman. J. Cell. Biol. 109:191-202). Specifically, muscle (alpha-smooth) actin is present on the stress fibers while nonmuscle actins (beta and gamma) ...

Locally distinct, transient realignments of cortical F-actin were found in live ascidian Ciona eggs during the first ooplasmic segregation by using fluorescence polarization-based molecular orientation imaging. These actin are correlated with directional movement egg cytoplasm revealed selective plane illumination microscopy.

background: cancer/testis antigens (ctas) are members of a group of proteins which are normally expressed in testis germ cells and to a lesser extent in the ovaries. because of recent reports about their aberrant and specific expression in some tumoral tissues, they may play a role as new candidates for targeted therapy. therefore, the study of the expression pattern of these biomarkers and its...

introduction: deficiency in mu opioid receptor signaling pathway is partially responsible for morphine tolerance. this deficiency may be due to uncoupling of opioid receptors and related g proteins, which in turn, it may be caused by their structural changes such as phosphorylation or by decreasing their abundance. in this study, we tried to investigate the effect of chronic administration of m...