Actin

By Christina Towers, PhD

By Jamshed Arslan, Pharm. D., PhD.

By Beth Melson, MS

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma is quite common in the U.S., covering more than 4% of all cancers each year, and is most susceptible to individuals between 50 and 60 years of age.  Squamous cells are a type of epithelial cell that are located all over the body with concentrations in the mouth, throat, neck and cervix.  EGFR, or epidermal growth factor receptor, is a trans-membrane glycoprotein that oversees cellular proliferation through its intrinsic tyrosine kinase activity.  When EGFR is bound to its ligand, it is phosphorylated by inner tyrosine kinase activity, where down

Actin is a fundamental component of the cytoskeleton, where it has the ability to create and break down actin filament formation in response to various cell needs.  Actin has six highly conserved isoforms, however beta and gamma actin are the two isoforms that are highly and ubiquitously expressed in the cell.  For this reason, measuring beta-actin levels has served as a useful control in research experiments in order to have a baseline of protein expression to compare cell manipulations to.  However, beta actin has other implications in scientific research aside from acting

Sordaria macrospora is a filamentous fungus that serves as very useful system for scientific research due to a short life cycle and easy manipulation.  Just like any other model organism, it is important to have an effective loading control to validate experiments in the Sordaria macrospora.  In addition, the growth and morphogenesis of filamentous fungi is dependent on actin organization.  Actin is a very abundant protein across biological species and can transition between monomeric and filamentous states.  Actin has an alpha and beta isoform, both of which sha

"CRISPR", or clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, is an ancient bacterial mechanism that prevents the invasion of foreign pathogens to a host organism.  Specifically, the CRISPR sequence has been identified as a single DNA sequence that is repeated with unique sequences (found to be that of viruses) in-between.  Thus, bacteria have created an environment that allows them to recognize and attack viruses in case of a re-invasion.  "Cas", or CRISPR-associate protein, is the second part of this defense mechanism, and is responsible for cutting t

Actin is an abundant cytoskeletal protein involved in a variety of cellular processes such as cell motility, cell division, and muscle contraction. Actin monomers assemble into filaments and can provide a track for transport of cargo by the molecular motor myosin (1). Alternatively, interaction with myosin allows contraction between actin filaments. This contractility is essential during cell migration and cytokinesis (1). On a larger scale, organized scaffolds of actin filaments interact with myosin to provide mechanical force during muscle contraction (1).

The structure and organization of the plasma membrane is maintained by an underlying network of cytoskeletal proteins including actin and spectrin. Adducin, a member of this protein network, binds to bundles and caps actin filaments and links them to spectrin. Adducin’s role in organizing the cytoskeletal meshwork at the plasma membrane is important in signal transduction, cell-cell adhesion, and cell migration (1).

Actins are extremely highly conserved structural proteins found in all eukaryotic cell cytoskeletons that govern cell structure, movement, and shape integrity. Six distinct actin isoforms, each encoded by a different gene and developmentally-regulated as well as tissue-specific-regulated, have been identified in mammalian cells. The alpha and beta isotypes are cytoplasmic and expressed in a wide variety of cells.